Transforming my thinking

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, the chief priests and the 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 concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

We’ve just heard about when Jesus restored sight to a man who was blind, and at first, he could see but not clearly (“I see people; they look like trees walking around”) until Jesus gave him clear sight. Then Jesus asked the disciples “Who do you say I am?” Peter sees who Jesus is (“You are the Messiah”), but it seems Peter didn’t see any more clearly than when the blind man saw people like trees.

Peter rebukes Jesus for not being Messiah Peter was expecting. And Jesus rebukes Peter for his wrong thinking. I suspect the biggest problem with Peter’s thinking wasn’t that he didn’t understand what Messiah came to do, but that he thought he understood better than Jesus and that he should take charge.

Imagine thinking you knew better than God! Well actually I can, because I suspect I often do it.

It reminds me of Romans 12:1-2:

¹ Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Only as God transforms my mind can I “test and approve what God’s will is”. And he transforms my mind as I give myself completely to him. Only as I think in partnership with his Spirit, can I hope to see him clearly.

^‘9 However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” – the things God has prepared for those who love him – ¹⁰ these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.’ (1 Corinthians 2:9-10, quoting Isaiah 64:4)

Father, I love with all my “heart and with all [my] soul and with all [my] strength and with all [my] mind” (Luke 10:27). I want to think like you. Holy Spirit, I want my thoughts to align with yours today.

Written by David Cornell