It's been quite a few days since we started this chapter, so let's review a little. We are looking at this chapter from the viewpoint of faith--or lack of it. You will recall that the Pharisees had no faith; the disciples had a little faith; and Peter had saving faith. We will see today that though Peter believed that Jesus was "the Christ, the Son of the living God," and he (Peter) trusted Him (Jesus) for his salvation, he was not immune to sin!
As we begin in v. 21, Jesus begins a new portion of His ministry--teaching and warning about His approaching suffering, death and resurrection. After all, this was the very reason He came to earth in the form of a man.
After hearing Jesus' prediction of His own death, Peter apparently wanted to protect Jesus. In stating that he would never let it happen, Peter actually is letting Satan use him. In reality, if Jesus had not died in our place, we all (including Peter) would die in our sins! Our sin would not be paid for, and we would remain guilty before God. vv. 21-23
This is not a perfect application of this text, but a thought occurs to me. It's a natural thing to want to protect our loved ones (especially our children) from pain and suffering, but we must remember that sometimes this is not the right thing to do. Perhaps the person will learn important lessons only through suffering the natural consequences of their choices.
In vv. 24-28 Jesus talks about real commitment to Him--real discipleship. Now we come back to the theme of faith. This is faith that serves God without reservation. When Jesus spoke of taking up a cross and following Him, the disciples understood that this meant the real possibility of dying because that's what a cross was used for--executing people! And it was a horribly violent and cruel means of capital punishment. The gold crosses we may wear around our necks bear little resemblance to the terrible death that accompanied the Roman cross of Jesus' day.
When we "take up our cross," we identify with Jesus. "Our cross" is not the natural suffering and troubles we may face in routine living here on earth. It means that we are willing if necessary to bear rejection, shame, suffering, and even death for Jesus' sake, just as He was willing to do for us. Material wealth and earthly gains are worthless in light of eternity. They cannot buy eternal life! A faithful follower of Jesus can look forward to great rewards when Jesus returns. If we are trusting Jesus as our Savior, we are God's child and our home in heaven is secure, but it's also true according to Scripture that we will be rewarded according to our works while here on earth.
v. 28 likely refers to the Transfiguration which we will see in the next chapter.
Psalm 118:1
The first and last verses of this psalm are identical and worthy of our meditation. "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever."
- We are to be thankful people. There is really no place in the Christian life to be ungrateful or entitled. We should be humble and thankful to God for his great goodness and love.
- God is good. This may seem like a cliche, and we may have trouble believing it when life gets hard. However, this thought is found repeatedly in God's Word.
- His love endures forever. In our sinful state, we have only a rather blurry view of perfect love. Yet along with being perfectly good, God also loves perfectly! This is something no human being can offer. And to top it off, God's love endures forever. We understand love only partially, and to be honest we understand eternity or "forever" even less. And yet this is a great and comforting thought that God is good and His love endures forever.
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