HUMAN POINT OF VIEW

23 November 2009
Scripture: 23 Jesus turned to Peter and said, "Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, and not from God's." 24 Then Jesus said to the disciples, "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me. 25 If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life. 26 And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process? Is anything worth more than your soul? 27 For I, the Son of Man, will come in the glory of my Father with his angels and will judge all people according to their deeds. 28 And I assure you that some of you standing here right now will not die before you see me, the Son of Man, coming in my Kingdom." (Matthew 16:23-28 NLT) Observation: Poor Peter. He seemed to always be the first to speak and not always with the right words. He had just declared that Jesus was the Messiah and Jesus said that he had not learned that from any human being. And now he was saying that Jesus should not fulfill his destiny. Application: It is easy to be like Peter and fall into the trap of looking at the life we are living only from the human point of view. Jesus says that if I try to live my life only my way and only for myself, I will lose it. But if I live for him, I will find true life. That is what I want; true life and the peace and rest that comes with giving my life to him and trusting and believing. Prayer: Lord, I pray that you will remind me when I slide into looking at life from the human point of view. Remind me what it is all about in serving and loving you. You are my life giver and I love you. AMEN I will always trust in God's unfailing love. I will praise God for what he has done. And I will trust in His good name. AMEN Psalm 52:8-9

Scripture But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. Heaven forbid, Lord, he said. This will never happen to you! Jesus turned to Peter and said, Get

away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from Gods. Matthew 15:22-23 Observation How could Peter plummet from hero to zero so quickly? In one paragraph Peter was an honor roll student while in the next he is a dunce. How did he get it wrong? How can I get it right? Heres the secret: look at all of life from Gods point of view. Peter was commended by Jesus not just for seeing that he is Messiah, but that my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. (16:17) What mattered most to Jesus was not that Peter had the right answer but how he had come to the right conclusion. Peter had taken time to ask the Father. That mattered most. Peter had been able to push past the denseness of the disciples and the criticism of the Pharisees and had seen the world just as God sees it. That meant that his heart was open, teachable, and looking beyond circumstances to God. Peter was asking and listening. Peter was reprimanded because he was seeing things merely from a human point of view not from Gods. He saw the cross without the Father and could not imagine any good thing coming from that. But had he given God space to interpret it to him, Peter might have grasped the plan of salvation in advance. Abraham saw Jesus day and rejoiced from 2000 years before. Why not Peter just months away? Application I need in every life setback, to ask the question: Father, how does this look from your perspective? Tomorrow Im going to a funeral that is very sad. A cousin of Leslie my wife died at just 31 years of age. She was newly married and had not yet had a family. Its impossible to ignore the tragedy of a virus that destroyed her internal organs in just a few days. But there are things God can see if we will dare to look at the future through his eyes. Prayer Father, there is plenty of roadkill on my journey with you that I do not understand, but I ask that you would help me to see things from your point of view. I give you space and time to show me how the cross leads to the resurrection even in the events I walk through today. Amen.

Seeing Things From Gods Point of View

Posted on November 13, 2011by Ramon Torres

Daily Readings: Psalm 90; Revelation 20:1-6; Matthew 16:21-26

Matthew 16:21 From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead. 22 But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. Heaven forbid, Lord, he said. This will never happen to you! 23 Jesus turned to Peter and said, Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from Gods. 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. 25 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. 26 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? (NLT) In todays reading, Jesus had been telling his disciples of the things that would soon take place in Jerusalem. Just a few verses before todays reading, Jesus had praised Peter for being blessed with the spiritual insight to recognize Jesus for who he was the Son of the Living God. Here, however, Jesus rebukes him strongly, saying, Get away from me Satan! How could Peter get turned around so quickly? The same way that we can get quickly turned around. The answer is there in verse twentythree: You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from Gods. I dont believe that Peter was aware that he had become a spokesperson for Satan. Im sure that he spoke out of a genuine concern and love for Jesus, but he was not seeing things from Gods point of view. Peter was genuinely concerned, but he was still wrong. When we take our eyes off of God, we, like Peter, can be well intentioned and still become a spokesperson for Satan. There can be times in the life of any disciple of Jesus in which they do not make a deliberate choice to reject the things of God, and yet still stand opposed to the things of God. How can we make sure that we are seeing things from Gods point of view? We see things from Gods point of view by staying in constant contact with God. We stay in Gods Word. We stay in contact with trusted Christian friends who hold us accountable. We maintain a spirit of worship. We pray before we react. These are the things that we must continually strive to do so that we will not unknowingly reject the things of God.

Today, let us stay connected to God so that we will see things from Gods point of view.