Dave's Diary

Prayer

Before you read, I invite you to pray this prayer based on Psalm 119:175.

Lord, give me grace to receive Your word,
so that Your laws might guide and sustain me.
and that my life might bring You praise. Amen.

Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your awareness to the voice of God, coming to you through His Word.

Reading

Matthew 16:13-20

²⁰ Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

What a very strange command this is. It’s the only one in our passage for today, so let’s think carefully about it.

Very simply, there are times when it is better for us to be silent about our Saviour. As Ecclesiastes 3:7 puts it, there is ” a time to be silent and a time to speak”.

For the disciples in this passage, it seems that Jesus knew they were not yet ready to tell others about His identity as the Messiah because they still totally misunderstood what that meant. This was made clear when Peter rebuked Jesus in Matthew 16:22 after He spoke about His coming death and resurrection. They were all still thinking that the Messiah/Christ was a conquering, military king who would liberate them from the overwhelming power of Rome’s oppression. In truth, He came to lay down His life and rise again so that we might be liberated from the even more overwhelming, oppressive power of sin and death.

In our lives today, there are situations where God, in His wisdom, knows that particular people are not ready for us to tell them the Good News of Jesus because we still need to establish trust or credibility with them. In such instances, 1 Peter 3:15 suggests,

“(W)orship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.” (NLT)

There are times, therefore, when we need to remain silent and let our lives do the talking, while preparing our hearts and minds to answer questions when they come our way.

Why might Jesus command us to be silent today, unstead of speaking about him? What reasons can you think of? Please give that some thought and leave a comment in the block right at the bottom of this post.

Contemplation

Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn these declarations over in your mind. Keep them in mind throughout the day and live in step with our King, Jesus.

As a disciple of Jesus Christ,

• I will stay sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s promptings.
• I will remain silent in obedience to the Spirit’s promptings.
• But, I will also speak courageously when I am asked a question about my faith or my Lord.

Holy Spirit, help me to correctly discern the time to speak and the time be silent. Amen.