The passage: Matthew 16:21-26, New King James Version
Jesus Predicts His Death and Resurrection
21 From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.
22 Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”
23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”
Take Up the Cross and Follow Him
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. 28 Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”
The teaching pastor Sunday highlighted Matthew 14:24-26 specifically with the Message translation:
Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?"There is so much to digest, and with my goal of keeping my posts short and to the point, I will attempt to balance content with brevity. I'll first begin by mentioning that I find something lacking with the Message translation. My impression is that the Message attempts to focus on context and the larger picture of any passage (it's also why, as a translation, they pretty much never set verses apart; every section is grouped together, a few verses at a time, as if it were now one verse). I get why they do that. However, I feel like something gets lost. It's why I gravitate toward older, more traditional translations, and often will quote the same passage in multiple translations, to get a fuller understanding of the text, both literal and contextual. In my opinion, both matter.
However, I am choosing to include the Message in this post because the content in this translation directly dovetails a major point that Sunday's teaching pastor highlighted that really spoke to me in a way that I've never really heard it before. The point of Jesus' talk in Matthew 16 is that there's more to life than just understanding and accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior, of [me] and of the world. It's also about handing over control of my life to Him, to do as He pleases. In this, I believe God also convicted me: while I have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, I have not given over control to Him.
Jesus says: "If you're coming with Me, you have to let Me lead." Sometimes, right through difficulty and suffering. "You have to trust Me in this; you have to let Me drive." I have to trust that the same Jesus who says, "I love you, I will never leave you or ditch you halfway through" also says "Follow me, and I promise you I will show you how to get through to the other side." It is up to us to choose; God will not force us. But He reminds us of the importance of making this choice to completely let Jesus lead.
In January, I believe God taught me an important lesson. Actually, I believe He has been trying to teach me for some years, but it wasn't until some things happened that something finally began to click. In my history I have a list of people by whom I have felt deeply hurt and betrayed. Moreover, on that list I have people who have done so and never apologized, sometimes not apologizing even when confronted. In January, I had another experience of this, and it became very clear to me that I was still trying to control the relationship: "if you don't apologize to me for what you've done to me, we're done," contrasted with: "if you freely apologize, I'll pretend it never happened and we will go on as before." The reality is, 1.) we will hurt one another, oftentimes inadvertently, sometimes intentionally; 2.) depending on the level of hurt, trust is not necessarily immediately rebuilt, sometimes never completely rebuilt. In other words, this is normal, and this is life, as sucky as it is. And the decision-making process I had come up with, as named above, really doesn't serve me very well (nor does it serve anyone else). The lesson God taught me was that to truly forgive someone, I needed to give up control of my relationship with that person.
The same is true, I have since found, for everything else. I still want and am in control of my life. Even though I grew up in the Episcopal church and knew about Jesus and many of the stories in the Bible; and even though I did eventually learn about having a personal relationship with Him through a Christian group in college (and decided I liked the idea); and even though I returned to the church via the Vineyard and have seen and lived out the fruits of my prayer then that my faith would stick unlike before; and even though I got baptized as an adult, publicly declared at my church (and on video, no less) that "Jesus is Lord" (that exact quote); and, even though I have seen God heal me and have received His healing time and time again... I am finding that I don't believe I have ever had a moment, as a real Adult, where I said: "OK, Jesus, I'll give you complete control over my life: every day, every moment, every decision, every circumstance, every thought, every act. No matter the path, no matter the circumstance, no matter the feelings I will have, no matter the fear. This life is Yours."
So, what gets in the way of me making this a unilateral decision? And, for you, the reader, what gets in the way of you also making this a unilateral decision?
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