Scripture selection: Luke 9:23
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.
It’s another one of the counter intuitive aspects of the gospel.
It just doesn’t seem to make sense – that the way to life is death or that the savior must be sacrificed on a cross of execution to all that is unholy.
It seems odd at best that those who would follow him must do likewise – dying to self.
Still, as Jesus moved steadily toward the fulfillment of his destiny, he warned his disciples of the cost of discipleship.
Faithful Christians are still learning that lesson today.
We live in a time when there is so much emphasis on self-realization and self-fulfillment, it is a wonder that anyone is listening to Jesus at all these days.
Yet the message still holds power and still calls out to those who find the “self” centered world lacking.
Crosses are not easy things. They never are.
But they are the way of Christ and his followers and they are the way to eternal life.
If they weren’t – the faith and all those who follow it – would have died off a long, long time ago.
