“And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He said this plainly and Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But turning and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
– Mark 8:31–33
Can you imagine that scene? Just make sure we got the picture here in Mark 8:31–33, Jesus just spoke about how He was going to suffer. How He was going to be rejected and killed, and then after three days rise again. So let’s give Peter and the disciples here some benefit of the doubt. That’s quite a statement that Jesus is making and not one that they expected, or certainly not one that they wanted when it comes to seeing Jesus rejected and killed. And then even the idea of resurrection, so foreign.
There’s so much here that had to have been confusing or discouraging. But then Peter takes Jesus aside and the language here, that he began to rebuke Jesus as if he knew better than Jesus or he had instruction for Jesus. And Jesus turns around and rebukes Peter with strong language. “Get behind me, Satan, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Lord help us to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Teach us to set our minds on Your thoughts and not our own.
So is it possible in our lives to, in a way that is not driven by God, in a way that is driven by the adversary, to set our minds on the things of man instead of the things of God? To think in a worldly way, and with such pride that we might presume to know better than God Himself.
Oh God, help us we pray. We pray for humility of mind. As we come to your word every day, we pray, God, that we would not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but that we would be transformed by the renewing of our minds according to your word. We just say together right now in prayer that we trust your word more than our thoughts, that our thoughts are oftentimes not your thoughts and our ways are not your ways. Your ways are so much higher, better, truer, purer. Your thoughts are so much higher, better, truer, purer.
Mark 8:31–33 Teaches Us to Keep Our Minds on Things of God
And so we pray, God, conform, transform our thoughts to be like your thought. Our ways to be like your ways. Keep us, we pray, from intentionally or unintentionally, explicitly or implicitly, knowingly or subtly almost unknowingly embrace the things of man instead of your thoughts, oh God. We pray that you’d help us to think in a way that is totally different from this world. Lord even today, tomorrow, we pray you help us to examine our thoughts. And for us to ask the question, is this thought coming from God or from the world? We pray that you would transform our thoughts that they might be from you, that they might be of you. That they might be humble before you and glorifying to you.
Change the way we think around your word and your ways, which we trust are very different from the ways and the words of this world. Transform our thoughts we pray today. Oh God, teach us what this means. Help us to meditate on what this means, all day long. What does it mean to think the thoughts of God, not the thoughts of man? In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
