Most of the time when my Hope is flat and my Peace is in pieces I can trace it to one source – “human concerns” over Heavenly concerns! This is the mission of the Grace road – to grow in Heavenly concerns!
“But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” – Mark 8:33
For some its pride, for others it’s a Superman complex and for yet others its pain from the past but the bottom line is this – By Grace through Faith God has an Amazing way of trimming and teaching us that “human concerns” will always create human disappointments and human disillusionment!
Peter was a zealot – a Very Over achieving and planning type that was looking forward to his name in lights right under Jesus! What Peter didn’t know at the time nor could anyone have known is that the marquee with that name would be hanging from a cross out of Love and Not from a victory over Rome parade!
For Jesus to call Peter satan would have been a huge ego burst – especially around the other disciples. But Jesus would much rather “pluck out” the eye of the ego than see one of His children have a lovers limp through life! A lovers limp is the kind that someone has when they are half law, half Grace and All miserable when they are totally honest.
Total honesty before God and with God has everything to do with understanding that the road of Grace is anything but smooth but everything about Love!
Whatever is done in Love will last – whatever is done in man’s ego and desire for more will disappear fast!
The path of Grace which creates Hope and Peace beyond human understanding is the path of learning His Love for me, His Love for others and the Freedom He created for us by His Amazing Free Gift!
