Human Point Of View?

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. 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 God’s.” [Matthew 16.21-23]

It is so easy to look at Peter in a condescending way over this situation. Even the least spiritual among us oftentimes get a little proudly pious when we think about Peter's rebuke here. What we fail to see however, is that Peter's rebuke is really our rebuke...

First, why was the rebuke from Jesus so stern? It almost seems like it came from nowhere! Besides, Peter was just expressing concern for Jesus, right?

Jesus' rebuke of Peter was necessarily brutal because Peter's well-intentioned concern was everything bad that God's people had faced up to that point and would face for all time to follow. Peter was only seeing what Jesus said from a human point of view, not God's.

I am telling you, the idols of debt, insurance, medicine and technology are products of highly-evolved human point of view! As soon as I read this passage today, I knew exactly why Jesus blasted Peter like He did! The idolatry of man's solutions masks or even eliminates any chance of seeing life from God's point of view. So gravely erroneous is this that it requires the words, Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me.

Almost every single problem that debt, insurance, medicine and technology "make better" are all problems (curses) that people in days gone by saw as clear indicators from God that something was wrong and they needed to make it right with Him! In other words, they understood that they needed to repent and return to God's ways...

The danger of debt, insurance, medicine and technology is that they slyly draw man to human thinking instead of God thinking. It is not good enough to get all "spiritual" and say, "Well, God gave us these things..." as if that makes it alright to trust them instead of God. You realize, God gave Peter the emotion to love and the desire to protect Jesus, right? And yet, Jesus slapped a rebuke on Peter of epic proportion! Where did that come from? It came from Jesus' clear realization that human thinking - human perspective - human point of view - is not only worthless, but dangerously counter-productive to the eternal things of God!

Our "microwave" society takes no time to meditate on the meaning of life's blessings and hardships! Consequently, there is little to no repentance. And, without repentance, there is no salvation - no deliverance - no hope... only man's point of view with its solutions that dangerously prevent any God-thought at all when times get tough. And for this reason, Jesus' harsh rebuke of Peter reveals the stark reality of just how damnable human solutions really are!

I am not promoting that we resort to living in caves. However, I am very much declaring that our human solutions must be treated as harshly as Jesus spoke to Peter above. I am adamant that we should know the Bible and understand our circumstances from Its point of view and respond accordingly. In other words, a curse is a curse and should be treated accordingly with repentance and humility instead of with human solutions like debt, insurance, medicine and technology that are a dangerous trap to us!

Besides all that has been said up to this point, Jesus demanded that His followers walk in the miraculous as He demonstrated. Regardless how futilely man defends his solutions of debt, insurance, medicine and technology, they add a human element to solutions God intended from us to look to Him alone for. When Jesus told the disciples, "You feed them," regarding the crowds, He had no intention of the disciples resorting to a human solution but instead to resort to the miraculous. In fact, He later rebuked them for their embrace of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees - human understanding that always wants Jesus to do something instead of launching out and performing miracles themselves.

Just a thought here: to want Jesus to perform a miracle (a sign) is no different than Him being a puppet on a stick for us. Think this through... If Jesus performs at our bidding, then He becomes a product of our will, doesn't He? If, instead we follow His example and start "speaking to mountains" ourselves, we operate at His bidding... See the difference?

I will concede that debt, insurance, medicine and technology are gifts from God if everyone else will concede that they allow us to command Jesus to perform at our will! Fair enough?

Father, help us to see that Jesus' stern rebuke of Peter contains insight that goes much deeper than we have previously thought. Help us to literally push away and rebuke any inclination to human point of view so that we might have Your point of view alone!