I would never dream of being called a "servant of Satan". It may have been what I once was before salvation...but no longer! The thought of serving Satan puts a pit in my stomach. He is the enemy of my beloved Lord and the father of lies. He prowls about like a roaring lion seeking to kill and destroy. He is the embodiment of all that is evil.
Yet, sometimes, I am his servant.
WHAT?
Read the words from Mark 8:31-33:
"Then He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, be killed, and rise after three days. He was openly talking about this. So Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But turning around and looking at His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind Me, Satan, because you're not thinking about God's concerns, but man's!"
Jesus had made it clear that God's plan for His life included His death and resurrection. It was a good plan, because it was God's plan...and God does all things perfectly, for our good and His glory. Peter jumps in and basically tells Jesus that God's plan is a bad idea...Peter saw the need to "set Jesus straight". And, in that moment, he became a servant of Satan. His thoughts were not on glorifying Christ, magnifying the gospel, and lifting high God's redemptive plan. He thought only of the temporary, only of his own desires. He was in direct opposition to God...and Jesus rebuked him in a way that makes me shudder..."get behind me Satan".
I shudder because I realize that, when I take my eye's off of God, when I am not renewing my mind with His Word, and meditating on all that He is....I become very short-sighted in my thoughts and concerns. I have stopped "thinking about God's concerns" and have focused on "man's", namely, myself. When I do that, I stand in opposition to God and His Word. And, without even realizing it, I have aligned myself with Satan, the enemy. I have sought to serve his purposes instead of God's....just as Peter did.
It's sobering. It deserves our thought and meditation. It helps us see the wickedness of our sin before a holy God. It causes us to fall to our knees in repentance and rise with a heart of thanksgiving for His forgiveness, mercy, and faithful love. It causes us to press in deeper to "take hold of that for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of me" (Phil. 3:12).
I know there are many times I have followed in the footsteps of Peter in this regard. I pray that, with each passing day, my footsteps would follow more and more closely behind Mary's when she said...
"Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." Luke 1:38
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