“Deny Themselves And Take Up Their Cross Daily And Follow Me”

Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?”

They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.”

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

Peter answered, “God’s Messiah.”

Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”

Luke 9:18-27

It may be hard to “sell” self-denial, but Jesus believed it and asked us to belief it as well. True self-denial means we try to see things as Jesus might have seen them. We must take the will of God as the very life of our being. We should not be thinking about what we need or want, but what God wants for us. What would Jesus have us do?

Getting only what we want is succeeding miserably. True success is found in “losing” our lives for Jesus’ sake and then finding our lives full and free in living in His will.

The spirit of humility and self-denial precedes a deeper and closer walk with God.

Our Daily Bread – June 28, 2013