Dueling Concerns

6 min read

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.”
—Mark 8:31-33

When Jesus spoke in parables, the disciples could not understand. When Jesus spoke plainly, the disciples refused to understand.

The concerns of God are laid out for us in the word of God—through history, poetry, prophecy, apocalypse, letters, genealogies and legal codes, and Gospels. The concerns of God are given to us in both figurative language (parables, allegories, metaphors, etc.) and in plain speech—and everything in between.

If we have a hard time understanding the concerns of God, it is not because God has not communicated His concerns to us. He has used every means possible in order to accommodate every communication style so that we may be able to understand what is in His plan and what is in His heart.

No. If we do not understand the concerns of God, it is only because we have different concerns—our own concerns. When our lives are preoccupied with our own concerns, we will either (1) not seek the concerns of God in His word, or (2) not understand the concerns of God in His word.

We do have human concerns that concern our God—matters of life and death, of goodness and peace and love, of human flourishing. These are concerns that are common to all of humanity, and God is concerned for us in these matters.

The difference is that we tend to address these concerns in the realm of the flesh, where our concerns are individualistic, personal, material, immediate, and limited. God addresses these concerns in the realm of His kingdom. God’s concerns for us are communal, relational, spiritual, generational, and unbounded.

The concerns of God are not only what are best for me, but what are best for all. And because of our sinful nature, we have a very difficult time reconciling those concerns. For God, it’s one and the same. For us, we have a hard time understanding.

The world is full of broken hearts because all we have in mind are human concerns and not the concerns of God. Human concerns cause us to get trapped in cycles of generational sin—bitterness, unforgiveness, anger, retribution, hate … war. The concerns of God show us the way to break that cycle of generational sin—love.

There is no human concern in this world that cannot be resolved by the love of God in Christ Jesus. And Jesus has resolved every human concern—and God’s—by going to the cross.

The cross resolves every human concern, so that by believing that to be true, we may have in mind the concerns of God.

Father, I spent so much of my life trying to fix my own broken heart in my own way. Help me to understand that You love me way more than I could ever love myself. Help me to know in the depth of my heart that Your way is the only way to blessing and happiness. In Jesus’s name. Amen.