Not only to believe...
John was saying to 'believe,' and to also do something with it!
1 John 3:21-24
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God
and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do
what pleases him.
And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love
one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him,
and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit
he gave us.
And what else besides just believing? We are to love one another as Jesus loved his disciples.
We are commanded to love one another as He loved the disciples! (John was one of the disciples).
Now.... When Jesus confronted Peter? And called him "Satan?" Jesus was loving Peter!
Jesus did not spare Peter's feelings because, in love, he wanted Peter to stop thinking in terms of human goodness,
and to start seeing God's viewpoint. Jesus
was showing Peter that what we call human goodness can be the Devil's way of thinking!
In human terms, Peter was expressing a high and noble sentiment towards Jesus! But, it was Satan's thinking.
Warning: Loving others as Jesus loved his disciples might make you unpopular with believers who habitually live according to their own human goodness.
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have
in mind the concerns of God, but about things that people think are important.”
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." Matthew 16:22-24
Taking up our cross is humbly (sometimes painfully) sucking it up when the Lord's Word rebukes us.
Especially, when we thought we were doing a good thing and had others agreeing with us.
For God wants to strip away from us what insulates us from knowing His mind and His happiness.
It's all the process of transformation, that when accepted, will allow it to take place in our own life...
It's one reason why the flesh is hostile to the Spirit.
For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.
They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. Galatians 5:17
And, we will be in for some shocks when we find something presented with accuracy what the Word tells actually us.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD." Isaiah 55:8
It's nothing personal....