Mark 8:35
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.
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The gospel today sure sounds frightening and sacrificial. We are to deny and lose our lives, take up our crosses and follow Him. All for the sake of Jesus and the good news of the Lord.
DENY OURSELVES. Humility and obedience, totally forgetting about fame and worldly honors. One of our greatest challenges will be to resist promoting ourselves and trying to succeed on our own. God is not interested in second-hand glory. He wants the credit for what He (and not what we) accomplishes in our lives.
TAKE UP OUR CROSSES. That is accepting responsibility of making sure that others are saved through us. Cross has become the symbol of salvation, but it was not clear at first to the disciples. Today, it may not still be clear to us what it means by taking up the cross, but through continual reading of His words and believing and having faith in Him, we could finally see the cross dying in ourselves and being alive in Him.
FOLLOW HIM. God does not command us to deny ourselves and take up our crosses because He wants to bring us misery. He knows the drastic measures He must go to in order to pry us away from the world and make us wholly dependent on Him. It is a burden given in love, for our good, for our joy. It’s the denial of worldly pleasures so that we can gain much higher pleasures when we finally meet Him in Heaven.
It is not God's job to follow us, it is our job to follow Him! Then, we must be willing to follow Him anywhere, anytime, under any conditions.
That is the deal!
Let us pray +
Lord Jesus, may we learn to take up our crosses and follow You. We have been very busy with our earthly works that we totally forgot about You. May you finally show us the way to Heaven through You. Amen +
I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.
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