The Life of Christ

Even though He tells them these things, they still refuse to believe them until after He rises and resurrects.

• In Lk. 24:46, after the resurrection, Jesus opened their understanding to show it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead the third day.

Mt. 16:22 And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.”

This moment is about to become the greatest earthly test Jesus will ever face, as far as we can see from the Gospel accounts.

• As we remember from His temptation in the wilderness, the devil departed from Him for a season, meaning that he would return again (Lk. 4:13).

Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time (Lk. 4:13).

• This time Satan’s evil presence would not be visible.

Jesus had one weakness — the fact that He did not want to go to the cross!

• From the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus told the Father, “Not my will....”

• The devil, knowing Jesus’ hesitation to bear the cross, developed a diabolical plan of attack to penetrate His weakest link.

• The devil knew that Jesus would obey His Father and submit to crucifixion; to try to convince Him otherwise would have been a feudal waste of effort.

• What the devil decided to do, however, was tempt Jesus to harbor a wrong attitude about going to the cross. If the devil could get Jesus to at least feel sorry for Himself and thereby violate Rom. 8:28, Jesus would disqualify Himself as our Savior.

• Self-pity violates Rom. 8:28, that says, “All things work together for good, to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.”

The second step of the devil’s strategy is to now inspire Peter, one of Jesus’ closest friends, to convince Jesus that He should not have to go to the cross.

• Just moments ago, Peter was generously applauded for receiving high level revelation from the Father for stating that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. It could seem that the same divine anointing still resides upon Peter, perhaps to prevent Jesus from making a tragic mistake. • It’s most unlikely that Jesus would out rightly refuse to obey, but to hold a seed of resentment for having to die in such manner would be enough to taint His obedience. Such is the nature of self- pity.

• Had Jesus entertained the mindset, “Why should I have to do this?” for even a moment, the devil would have conquered!

• Such an attitude would have defiled the final sacrifice! It was a brilliant satanic strategy that may have been centuries in the making!

Mt. 16:23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan!”

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