SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/25/2022 8:50 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “The
Principle for Us”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
16:23b
Message of the verse: “for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but mans.”
In this last part of verse 23 we see that Jesus gives the
reason that Peter fell into Satan’s trap and found himself trying to lure his
Lord into it as well and that is that Peter was not setting his mind on God’s
interest but mans. Now because he is
fallen and sinful, man’s ways are not the Lord’s his interests are not God’s.
Here is what Peter was doing wrong, and I have to say
that this is probably what many born-again believers do wrong in their lives,
and that is that Peter was reasoning from his own finite and sinful mind, as he
found himself siding with Satan and opposing God. Like I have said in earlier SD’s from this
section of Matthew that Satan is tricky trying to get believers to fall into
his traps, doing sinful things and then after doing them he will use those
sinful things to accuse us of doing something wrong. Peter did not continue to submit to the
leading of the Father as seen in verse 17; he lost the Father’s
perspective. In his human wisdom he
could not fathom why his Lord, the Messiah, had to go to the cross, which of
course was the Father’s will for Him.
Peter was thinking like an unredeemed, fleshly man and found himself
becoming “hostile toward God” (Romans 8:7).
I will close this short SD with a quotation from John
MacArthur’s commentary: “When believers
focus on their present pain or potential distress rather than on the Lord who
has allowed that pain, they are easy prey for Satan’s traps and can even become
his traps for ensnaring others. James therefore
says, ‘Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,
knowing that the testing of you faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result,
that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing’ (James 1:2-4). ‘Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial,’
he goes on to say: ‘for once he has been
approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to
those who love Him’ (v. 12).”
9/25/2022 9:06 AM
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