Living Eternal Lives

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MARK

LIVING ETERNAL LIVES

Mark 8:31-33

31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 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 things of God, but the things of men." 

NIV

This is the part of the story many sermons have been based on in order to remind us of our human condition. Of course we might also have heard from the time to time that phrase not found in the scriptures, “You’re so heavenly minded, you’re no earthy good”, but we should be saying, “you’re so earthy minded, you’re no heavenly good”. That is what Jesus told Peter, isn’t it? Even though the Spirit had revealed to Peter that Jesus was the Christ, Peter was still thinking in human terms. He had not grasped the reality of the Kingdom of God. He, along with the other disciples, may well have be looking for Jesus to overthrow the establishment of elders, chief priests and teachers of the law. They were looking for Jesus to put an end to the hundreds of rules and regulations, and set himself up as the leader of the people. Peter just could not wrap his mind around the facts Jesus laid out that were going to happen. Do we think in anyway like Peter and the disciples did? Do we see Jesus as a way to improve our human condition? Do we see Jesus in terms of how he makes our lives different? Do we always consider how we should behave, and how we should not? Are we making lists of do’s and don’ts out of the things, Jesus said? There were once a series of little tracts titled, “what next” now that your accepted Jesus, what do you have to do next, the list was made up of earthy duties, read the Bible, pray each day, find a church, and so forth. All of them were geared toward earthy activities, not that all of that is bad; the behaviors as explained, really did not focus on the things of God. We have to see ourselves as citizens of the Kingdom of God, and start thinking of the reality of heaven, and less about our somewhat meaningless time on earth. Sure God blesses us with many earthly things. Yes, he directs us in our lives, in our interactions with others. He even directs us where to live, where to work, where to gather together with other believers and where to serve him as well as others. All activities we could consider as earthly things, or things of men, but in reality those influences in our lives are all directed as heavenly things, they are for the benefit of the Kingdom. Our whole purpose as believers is to bring honor and glory to our God. We really need to get our minds off our own lives, and on the things of God. Yes, Jesus came to serve man, to be the sacrifice, to die so that we might have eternal life, so we need to live as though we are eternal. The things of men will perish, but the things of God are eternal. We need to live eternal lives.