The Other Guy

            When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?”

            Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” 

            Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?” 

            But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.” Deuteronomy 18:20

 

            Yesterday, the discussion centered around freedom. And many of those things we need to seek freedom from get in the way of our following Him. Today’s passages deal with ways we get off track when we’re trying to follow Jesus – ways we need to pray for power against. The first is the other guy… the person God seems to like better than us, the spiritual giant who seems to have it all together. It’s so easy to compare ourselves and to be envious. It’s also easy to be confused. The giant is going in that direction; shouldn’t we be, too? Or, we’re following Jesus by going in that direction, so shouldn’t the giant, too?

            The second is also the other guy… but this time it’s the person who claims to be a spiritual giant (or another form of expert) but starts proclaiming with authority that we may, should, or must do something we (should) know we should not do. The Jews were told to kill self-identifying prophets who suggested they follow other gods. I’m not going to advocate killing anyone, but you can certainly treat that person as “dead to you.”

            This was also the problem they had in Corinth. Some folks claimed to follow one person, and others claimed to follow another. We need to pray that in 2023, we would follow Christ and not allow ourselves to be distracted by the other guys.