Bible Stories for the Young
Green triangles are narrated and fully illustrated and will have simple animation added along the way. Yellow triangles have narration, but the illustrations aren't done yet. Videos with red triangles are planned. New and updated videos will be added very often.
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The disciples were excited about all Jesus was doing and going to do, but just as any good teacher does, Jesus needed to prepare them for some tough stuff that was coming.
Jesus began to tell His followers how He was going to be hurt and rejected by the religious leaders, and then killed. Jesus wanted them to know. He wanted them to understand. He wanted them to make it through the hard times coming. So He talked to His followers about what was going to happen.
But Peter didn’t like the sound of all this. He said, “Jesus, can You come over here a minute so I can talk to You?”
Jesus walked away from the others and over to Peter. Peter looked upset and said, “Jesus, stop talking this way. Stop talking about how You have to suffer and about how people are going to turn against You and about how You’ll die. You’re the Rescuer we’ve have been waiting for. You’re going to conquer our enemies and reign as king. What You’re saying just can’t happen to You!”
Jesus looked over at His followers and then back to Peter and said, “Get out of My way, satan! You are not thinking about what God wants or seeing with your Heaven-eyes. You’re just thinking like a normal person thinks.”
Why do you think Jesus called Peter “satan”? Peter was Jesus’ friend, but Jesus just called him satan and told him to get out of His way.
It’s because instead of seeing things from God’s view, Peter was letting satan get into his thinking. And now Peter’s words were tempting Jesus, just like satan had tempted Him out in that desert.
Jesus knew what was about to happen, and He wasn’t looking forward to being hurt, hung naked on a cross, and killed.
But Jesus had come to earth to do important work that His Father had asked Him to do. So it was wrong for Peter to try to protect Jesus from that Work and from the cross that Jesus needed to bear.
Jesus called the others over closer, and He told them, “If anyone wants to become My follower, he must say ‘no’ to himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. If you try to hang on to your life and save it for another day, you’ll lose it. But whoever loses his life because of Me and My Good News will save their life.
“If you stay comfortable and avoid pain and owies, but lose your soul and don’t get to be with Me forever, is that really worth it? Even if you got the whole world and all its stuff, what good would it do you if you lost your soul?”
(That’s an easy answer, huh? Not worth it one bit!)
Jesus was trying to prepare His followers for what was about to happen to Him. But also Jesus knew that they would have hard things to face in their lives, too. They couldn’t protect Him, or themselves or each other from pain. Not if they wanted to be His followers. Jesus had to hurt and face a cross. And anyone who follows Him will have to face a cross and hurt, too.
A super nice and sweet person who is sooooo afraid of pain that they cower in fear, doesn’t get to be with Jesus if they refuse to change — just like someone who steals or lies or murders.
You can’t be like Jesus if you say, “I’m afraid that might hurt, and I’m not gonna do anything that makes me afraid or that might hurt me.”
Jesus isn’t like that, is He? So if you want to be like Jesus, you have to let Him teach you how to be brave, and we have to help each other learn to be brave. Because Jesus says that everyone who follows Him will have their own cross to carry. That doesn’t mean we’ll all carry a piece of wood like Jesus did, but we will all hurt in some way, like He did.
So just like it was wrong for Peter to try to protect his friend Jesus from doing the temporarily painful work His Dad asked of Him, we can not protect ourselves or our friends from any temporarily painful work our Daddy in Heaven asks of us either.
And did you know that even now, as a child, you can get some practice in God’s ways of being brave? Like if you fall off your bike and scrape your knee, or you get a shot or need a tooth pulled or a splinter taken out — those are all just some of your chances to practice courage. So don’t shrink back, or shrivel up, or get mad, or run away, in fear from those things.
Be brave. Trust. And practice courage with every loose tooth, boo-boo, band-aid, and skinned knee. God can help you through it, and you can grow, grow, grow in courage. Just you watch and see.