Friday, August 5, 2016

Matthew 16: 24-28

Jesus said to his disciples,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?
Or what can one give in exchange for his life?
For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory,
and then he will repay each according to his conduct.
Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here
who will not taste death
until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.”

The journey of life has two destinations, heaven or hell. God is longing to accept everyone into heaven and sends no one to hell. Where we spend eternity is a choice given to each and every person. Ultimately, it comes down to one question; whom do you love more, God or yourself?

The root of every sin is a selfish desire. We sin when we take more than what God wants to give. Adam and Eve were given everything they could ever want except the knowledge of good and evil. They took this from God in the form of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, something God had forbidden them to take. Sin is always a choice. They took what God was not willing to give and in doing so they broke fidelity in their relationship with God and were separated from him. The same thing happens to us every time we choose to take that which is not offered.

Jesus tells us what we must do if we want to inherit God’s royal nature. We have to conform our wills to that of the Father. We have to deny our selfish desire and accept only that which God is willing to give. We have to live sacrificial lives in service to others.

How do I lose my life for the sake of God? Jesus demonstrates how to do this in the Garden of Gethsemane.  His personal desire was not to be tortured and die. His desire was to stay with those he loved and continue to teach them the ways of the Father. Yet, he put the Father’s desire ahead of his own and willfully took on the task that was presented to him. Likewise, we are tasked with carrying on his ministry in the modern world, a world that teaches that ultimate happiness comes from loving and serving the self above all else. To live for Christ today means to live a life contrary to the culture. That means I have to give up the rewards the culture has to offer.

What profit is there for me to gain everything this culture has to offer ad lose my life for all eternity? That is the lie of the current age, that the self is the center of all that is important. How I define the self is up to me alone and no one has a say in it. If I don’t like my gender I can choose to be something I am not. If I don’t like the ethnicity I am born with I can opt for another. If I don’t like what God has given me I can take what he wasn’t willing to give. I am the center of my world. I am number one. I AM.

And when I choose to save my own life I will lose it in the end.

My cross is who I am. My cross is what God has called me to be. I must embrace my cross and become the best version of myself as I can be. I must follow Christ, the perfect human, and love sacrificially. I must be Simon the Cyrene and help another to bear their cross the best they can.

We get to hell all on our own. We get to heaven by helping and being helped by one another.