19/12/2010 - Acts that are Dangerous and Uncalled-for

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“Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!” (Matthew 16:22)

The Lord had praised Peter for his brilliant answer in this passage in which he states he believes that Jesus is the Master, the Son of God. Yet, He called his attention to the following: his disciple didn’t understand through his intellect that Christ was the Lord but through the revelation of the Father who’s in the Heavens. Yet, my brother, Peter let himself be carried away by the enemy instead of meditating on what he’d heard from Jesus and, mind you, when soon afterwards the Lord told Peter about what would happen to Him, Peter thought he had the right to reprimand the Lord.

That passage teaches us to be careful not to commit the same mistake by wrongly thinking God’s to blame for something. It’s good to check the source of what we’re hearing and to make sure whether what we’re feeling is coming from the Most High or not. Well, we can feel the answer to that right in our hearts through the preaching of the Holy Word; after all, everything that comes from the Heavens must be aligned with what the Scriptures state. In fact, not everything that we feel in our hearts comes from the Lord. A very recurrent mistake is when we pay no notice to what we’re feeling and, then, we’ll get the message across as though it were from the Lord. That’s dangerous, because if that isn’t coming from God, it’s surely coming from the enemy direct or indirectly.

Another lesson to learn is that someone might even be used in a spectacular manner by the Most High; yet, if they don’t keep their eyes wide open they’ll be ensnared by the traps of the devil, who’s used to telling his lamest excuses, or by a devilish inspiration concocted at the deepest and filthiest dens of hell.  Now, in this case, the Apostle Peter happened to attempt to teach Jesus a moral lesson without realizing his attitude. We sometimes behave likewise, don’t we?

What happened wasn’t something to be taken for granted, something with no consequences, it was THE devil’s intervention to make Jesus’ disciple to get in God’s way and spoil all of His plans. The unwary might be led by the enemy in an informal conversation into deviating someone from God’s ways by giving counselling that have nothing to do with the Most High. This is exceedingly serious! If you don’t receive any revelation from the father, you’d better keep your mouth shut. Do not ever tell anyone anything unless it’s a Word given by Him for you to convey to other people.

Suppose someone has fallen into sin and the Lord’s teaching them a lesson. They feel they’ve been in error and begin to confess their transgression. So, when they turn to you they tell you that they’re feeling the divine hand weighing on their lives (Psalm 32: 4). You’ll tell them that’s nonsense and that all they must do now is to recognize they’ve sinned and ask God to forgive them and every evil thing will be gone. Then they tell you they’ve already done that – but, not the way they should. Then we manage to convince them to believe that everything’s been solved now and that they should forget about it. They do as they’re told and decide not to open their hearts to the Lord any longer. Who’s to blame for that attitude? Who’s going to take responsibility for that? Have a thought on it!

In Christ, with love,

R. R. Soares