What does God want?

"From that time Jesus began to show 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 up on the third day. Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS.

“Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”"

(Matthew 16:21-28, NASB)

As followers of Jesus Christ, we seek to build His kingdom. We seek to please our God and Savior. Most believers agree that we seek desperately to do good and be good only by His grace.

Yet God wants more. God is always teaching us this lesson of Peter in Matthew 16. There is often a great chasm in the difference between our interests and God’s interests. And it’s the difference between life and death. Peter was zealous for what seemed like a good thing. It would seem he was ready for Jesus to be king and to establish His earthly kingdom immediately (of course conquering the Romans). Peter was so fixed on his own seemingly good desires, he could not see how far his desire for the kingdom was from what God actually wanted. He was so blind that he rebuked his Lord.

We are Peter. How often do we rebuke God? So very often, as individuals and as the church, we seek many seemingly good things that are actually very far from what God wants. There is a great chasm fixed between life and death (Luke 16:26), and there is a great difference between the desires of our flesh and what the Spirit of God desires (Romans 8:5-8).

Peter wanted an immediate kingdom, but Jesus wanted to obey His Father. Peter wanted to defeat the Romans, but Jesus was going to give His life to them. Peter wanted victory, yet Jesus needed to die so that we could have life. God’s way always brings life. Man’s way always brings destruction.

"There is a way which seems right to a man,

But its end is the way of death."

(Proverbs 14:12, NASB)

The way of the cross

In Matthew 16, before Jesus goes to the cross, He reveals that His disciples will have to bear the cross (“daily” in Luke 9:23) in order to have life. The idea that, “whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” is very foreign to us. Everything in our culture, all the philosophies of the world and the ways of the flesh and the enemy tell us to avoid the cross to make life easier and to make our Christianity easier. Every day we’re faced with messages that are very anti-cross. We’re made to feel that if we’re suffering then we’re not good Christians, or that something is wrong with us.

"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed."

(1 Peter 4:12-13, ESV)

When we walk in what God wants, the cross comes. That suffering is often the very calling of God for His great purpose. God’s way always brings life. The cross always brings resurrection life, yet the deceptions from the enemy have crept into the church and tell us the exact opposite.

We prioritize any other thing above God in an effort to avoid suffering and avoid the cross. Even prioritizing family time above serving God, we can feel a false virtue. In the same way, we put money above God with our jobs or businesses. As men, we justify ourselves and speak of a virtuous call to provide, but if we aren’t trusting that the God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50) can provide for us, then the virtue is false and we are deceived.

We even prioritize our own personal well-being, physical health, or mental health, above what God wants and fail to understand the ways in which God wants to provide deeper healing in all these things. Putting God first will always bring the cross. But we have to ask ourselves, at what point does God get what God wants?

This does not mean that we have to participate in every Christian activity, but we do have to discern these activities by the Holy Spirit and always put what God wants first. We must also ask how many of our church programs are truly what God wants as opposed to seemingly virtuous events or a proven formula? We must let the cross come. What if the cross came and ruined our plans, our schedules, our programs, our attendance numbers, our budgets, or our pride? Would we receive the cross or reject it?

We must not be deceived, but when we seek first God’s kingdom above all other things, then God, knowing what we need, will add these things (Matthew 6:33) with His measure of grace and His measure of suffering. We have to accept both.

We must repent

We must remember the lesson of Peter in Matthew 16 and seek God’s desires and not our own. We must not avoid the cross, but trust the words of Christ. And to the degree there is anxiousness (Philippians 4:6-7) in our hearts about God’s will, to the degree we do not seek His kingdom first, and to the degree there is a gap between the current state of our hearts and what God wants, we must pray and cry for mercy and we must repent. There is no other way.

A letter to the church body from God’s deep dealings with my own heart.

Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy

blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin!

(Psalm 51:1-2, ESV)

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;

you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

(Psalm 51:16-17, ESV)