October 1st

If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it. Matthew 16:24b-25

We human beings love destinations. We like to know where we are going and how to get there. Jesus offers His solution to this question in this verse. If we decide to follow Jesus, we must abandon the things of the world and pursue following Jesus with our whole heart. We forsake the things of the world by deciding to love Jesus with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. This will involve a series of choices that we must make to deny the pleasures of our flesh and turn our focus to Jesus and His Word.

We will save our life when we give it to Jesus to use as He sees fit. This is known as losing our life because we give up our dreams and goals to pick up His dreams and goals. Life presents us with difficult situations that we call a cross to bear. Jesus calls us to bear this cross with Him so that we can have the mind of Christ, which pleases Father God.