Day 104: Matthew 16:13–23

Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, “Oh no, Lord! This will never happen to You” (v. 22).

Try to picture Peter saying something like, “Jesus, can I see You just a minute right over here? Excuse me, brothers. We’ll be right back,” then commencing his rebuke of the “Son of the living God.” In my opinion, Peter the rock was pretty fortunate he didn’t get thrown into the nearest lake! A couple of thoughts surface as I look at this interchange:

1. One minute we can be so “on target” and the next minute so “off.” Without a doubt, some of my better moments preceded my worst disasters. How about you? I mean, one moment Peter made a statement that Christ said could only have been revealed to him by the Father. The next thing we know he’s made a statement Christ attributed to the devil. One minute a rock—the next minute a stumbling block. Whew! What a frightening thought! How on guard we must be.

I keep looking at Peter’s words: “This shall never happen to you!” (Matt. 16:22). I wonder, based on Christ’s response to him, if in Peter’s heart he might have been thinking: “This shall never happen to me! I’ve given up everything to follow You! You can’t go dying on us here! We’ve got a kingdom to build!” Peter didn’t understand that Christ’s suffering and death were the means by which He would indeed secure the kingdom.

2. All Satan needs to have momentary victory over a disciple is for us to have in mind the things of men. Satan doesn’t have to get us blatantly thinking satanic thoughts to have victory over us. All he needs is to get us looking at life from man’s perspective rather than God’s. But if we surrender our minds to the things of God, we are safe! We don’t have to constantly look out for our own best interests, because He’s constantly looking out for them. What Peter didn’t understand is that what may have seemed best in the short run would have been disastrous in the long run. Had Jesus saved His disciples the anxiety of His betrayal, trials, and death, He wouldn’t have saved them at all.

On this earth I don’t know that we will ever perpetually have in mind the things of God rather than the things of man. But if we don’t make the deliberate choice to have in mind the things of God when faced with our biggest challenges, most of us will probably default back to our natural instinct—the things of man.