Skip to main content

Listen!


 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5)
 

         Do you like roller coasters? I don't. You spend forever climbing a hill. You get to the top and have half a second, then you race down to a low point. Sometimes the racing down involves tying your insides into knots. At the bottom, you either have to be dragged up another hill or you get off the ride. Peter's life was a roller coaster from the time he met Jesus. There would be miracles, and then Jesus would teach things that didn't always make sense, and then they'd go out and perform miracles, and return to be taught. Peter was praised for giving the right answer to "Who do you say that I am?" Jesus said that said answer came from God. Peter was at the top of the hill.
            Then Jesus started talking of going to Jerusalem and dying. Peter had rebuked Him. Can you blame him? Here was his best friend, the Messiah who was supposed to overthrow Rome and free Israel, the Son of the Living God, talking about dying. In return, Jesus had called him Satan. He was at the bottom of the hill.
        Then, Jesus took them up a physical hill and was transfigured before Peter, James and John. Talk about top of the hill. Why wouldn't they want to stay there, especially if staying meant that Jesus didn't go to Jerusalem and die?
       We're the same way without even as much motivation. When we get to a "mountaintop" experience, we don't want to go back down. We especially don't want to race back down to a low point. Like Peter, we might suggest building shelters and sticking around, instead of asking God what He wants especially if we didn't like the answer the first time we heard it (before having the experience.)
           Peter raced back down the hill without leaving the peak. God reminded them and reinforced what Peter had said a short time before. He took it further by saying that He was well-pleased with Jesus, the same Jesus who was talking to Moses and Elijah about going to Jerusalem and dying.
         There are time when we don't want to listen to Jesus because He's telling us something we don't want to hear. Sometimes, we pretend we didn't hear. Sometimes, we pretend He didn't say it, that the part of the Bible in question isn't God's word. Of course, the parts we like are. Sometimes, we argue with Him about it. And God's response to these times is, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Birthday of Bedrick Smetana

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen To Him

              The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . (Deuteronomy 18:15)           Today, we switch from Jesus’ claims of “I am” to prophecies made about Him. My Bible platform is starting in Deuteronomy. I’d start in Genesis, where we would learn that the one who would save us would be a descendant of Eve (Genesis 3:15), of Noah (by default), Abram and Sara(Genesis 12:1-3). Isaac (Genesis 17:19), Jacob (Genesis 25:23), Judah (Genesis 29:8), and David (II Samuel 7:12-16). There were also references to a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-32). In addition, there were prophecies about when and where the prophet/Messiah would be born and what would happen to him.           Of course, naysayers will claim that Jesus’ life was retrofitted or reverse enginee...
Post a Comment
Read more