Am I Offending God?
"From that time, Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things...and be killed, and be raised the third day. Then Peter took [Jesus] aside and began to rebuke Him saying, 'Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!' But [Jesus] 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.' 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.' "
Yesterday we were snowed-in all around the DC/MD/NoVA area, so our pastor preached live from his home. It was an AMAZING way to fellowship, and he preached a very TIMELY sermon on the verses above.
Peter offended Jesus because he spoke against the plan of salvation--he told Jesus that he should not die. Peter was not concerned with heavenly things--he did not understand that the only way we could be saved was if Jesus to suffered and died. So Jesus had to rebuke Peter; when we are offensive to God, He sees our sinful nature, and He has to rebuke us.
It seems harsh, but Jesus does give us the way to follow Him without offending Him. First He says we must DENY OURSELVES. Now I dunno about you...but I'm terrible at this. I love me some ME! I like making myself feel good, and I don't reall deny myself much of anything. If I see a nice outfit in the store, even if I have other bills to pay first, I buy the outfit because it's what I want. I eat whatever I like, even if I'm not hungry, because it's what I want. And yes, there are times I fall into sin because the end result is it will feel good for me. That's NOT what Jesus wants. When we refuse to deny ourselves, we offend God.
Secondly, Jesus says we must TAKE UP OUR CROSS. We must make the decision to live within God's will for our lives. Our decisions must be Godly decisions--where we go, where we work, who we marry, how we interact with people--we should pray and let God lead in all our decisions. It also means we must act like Christ when we come into contact with people, and be a witness for God in our daily lives! When we speak, people should hear Christ. When we interact with our co-workers, classmates, and our family members, they should feel like they've just interacted with Christ. When we refuse to take up our cross, we refuse to display a Christlike character, and we offend God.
We must do both in order to truly follow God without being an offense to Him. But it is impossible for us to deny ourselves and take up our crosses without God's help! Please don't get caught trying to do this on your own--you'll fail. We're human, and it is our nature to be "mindful of the things of men," rather than the things of God. So as we go through this upcoming week, let's remember to pray for ourselves so that we may have the strength to deny ourselves and take up our crosses. With God's help, we don't have to worry about being offensive anymore =)
She includes Biblical references in her music, which stresses issues of poverty and war, and she has been compared to Floetry and Erykah Badu (one of our faves here at The Feisty House).
