21From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.
22Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!"
23But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."
How quickly things change! How completely the tables can turn! In the last verse, Jesus just called Peter blessed and now He calls him Satan and an offense! We all get the seeds for good and bad in our heart. None of is immune to either kind of seed. Don't get too caught up in how well things are going for you when you feel the peace of God working through you, because Satan is still there trying to accomplish his work through you too. Satan could even influence Peter, whom God just blessed with the revelation that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And imagine things from Peter's perspective! He has been a good friend of Jesus' for some time now. He has been with Him in all His works. He has seen the wisdom and power that Jesus holds. And he just discovered that Jesus is their Savior, the Son of God. This can only get Peter more excited about the things to come! And just as Peter is starting to see all these possibilities open up, he is being told that Jesus must suffer and be killed! I can understand why Peter would want to deny it. He knows Jesus would easily have the ability to prevent it from happening. There is that within Peter that has so many hopes for Jesus. But those desires and hopes are of his own, not of God's.
Do we ever get frustrated or depressed that we are unable to reach our hopes and desires? There are so many things we want to do, have, reach. But are those things of God or of men? Actually, the things of God are much more achievable and much longer lasting. He will help us every step of the way.
And then I look at this from Jesus' perspective. It seems like this would be very hard for Him. I would think His human side would also have the seeds of Satan hitting him. He withstood His direct testing by Satan in the wilderness, but now Satan is working through one of His best friends. I would think that the temptation would be great. But He knows this is the work of Satan. And He refuses to follow the prompting of Satan, putting Satan behind Him so he can tempt Him no more.
Jesus set the example of how to keep your resolve in following what God wants of us. We must be just as determined if we are to keep Satan behind us too. For Satan can come at us from any angle, even through the well meaning intentions of our friends, even the friends who seem to have had much revealed to them from God.
God's path for us may be difficult. Many things God wants of us may seem in direct conflict with our personal desires. But our first desires should be for the things of God. All others may simply get in the way.