¹³ When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

¹⁴ “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.”

¹⁵ Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?”

¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷ Jesus replied, “You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. ¹⁸ Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. ¹⁹ And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.”

²⁰ Then he sternly warned the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Matthew 16:13-20

Dear God, I just had this thought while reading this passage this morning. According to our modern-day mission philosophy, we should be working every moment of every day to “save” every person on this planet that we can, yet Jesus seemingly spent his first 30 years on earth not really reaching out to anyone, and then he spent most of his public ministry obscuring the fact that he was the Messiah. Now, I understand that he couldn’t be completely inflammatory about himself being the Messiah or it would get the Pharisees to kill him sooner than he planned, but it’s still interesting that there was something of a cloak of secrecy about this.

I got to be with a group of eight men last night who have graduated (or are about to graduate) from the Christian Men’s Life Skills class. It was a lot of fun. Eleven weeks ago, we started with 24 men. Two have been re-arrested (I don’t know if they are out), two more left after the eight-week minimum, and a couple couldn’t come last night, but let’s say we are moving forward with 10 who intend to do this, and six end up walking this path together long-term. The men last night were talking about their changed lives. They were talking about their wives seeing the changes in them. They talked about the changes they see in each other and even a couple of guys who weren’t there. It was cool. But it reminds me that the path is narrow and difficult to walk and few will find it (Matthew 7:13-14).

Father, help me to continue to find the narrow path today. Help me to walk with these men on this path. And I’ll admit I’ve been feeling very selfish lately. Yes, I need a vacation, which I’ll get next week, but it feels beyond that. It feels like I’ve picked my ways to serve, but I’ve picked some pretty comfortable ways. I’ve thought of needs that I’ve ignored. They sounded too hard to help. So, Holy Spirit, move me and convict me when I need to be convicted. Show me what you would have me to do today.

I pray all of this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen