Mark 8:34

Passage

Jesus then calls a crowd around His disciples so that He can teach.  Jesus tells the crowd that anyone who desires to follow Him must first deny themselves.  Then, they can take up their cross.  Once a person has taken up their cross then they can follow Him.

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

Jesus calls in a crowd to teach.  Jesus doesn’t do this to publicly shame His disciples – especially Peter.  Instead, Jesus knows that He needs to do some intentional teaching to His disciples and it is material that is good for the general public to hear.  So He calls in a crowd to listen.  However, notice that the teaching is not too dissimilar to a parable.  This is not exactly straightforward instruction.  Jesus is teaching the crowds, but He is using some fairly abstract concepts in doing it.

Why would Jesus teach the crowds in abstract concepts?  What is the purpose of bringing people together for teaching if you are going to teach things that aren’t very basic?  What does Jesus stand to gain with respect to discipleship by teaching in a reasonably abstract manner?

Second Thought:

Jesus says we must deny ourselves first.  This is a teaching that I think many Christians in the world like to ignore.  At least I do.  However, notice that this is not an optional step.  In fact, not only is this step not optional it is also the very first step!  We absolutely must deny ourselves if we are to follow Jesus.  We must toss aside our personal agendas for life before we can ever claim to be following anyone but ourselves.

Then, we can take up our cross.  After we have tossed away our personal agendas we can pick up the struggle against our humanity.  We can pick up our constant struggle against the call to bring back into our life those priorities that we just tossed aside.  Taking up our cross means resisting the urge to make life about ourselves once more.  This is why one must deny themselves before they can pick up their cross.  Unless we deny our that part of our humanity that is apart from God, we have nothing against which we should resist.

Have you denied yourself?  Are you truly pursuing what God wants for your life?  Or are you pursuing what you want but doing it in a fashion that looks like you are trying to also pursue God?  If you have denied yourself, how are you doing with picking up your cross?  How are you doing with resisting the urge to make life all about you again?

Third Thought:

Only after we have denied ourselves and picked up our cross can we truly follow Jesus.  In order to follow Jesus, we cannot be following anything or anyone else.  Of course, what is scary is that this passage comes at the heels of Jesus having just told His disciples that He was going to die.  If we put this all together, here’s what Jesus is saying.  Jesus is telling His disciples that He is going to die.  He asks us to toss aside our agendas and follow Him to the point of being willing to sacrifice our own desires for the sake of what God desires for us.  That’s literally what Jesus did.  He sacrificed His own life because God wanted Him to atone for our sins.  Only the person who is willing to sacrifice their own desires and instead embrace the desires of God can truly be said to be following God.

Does it seem natural to think about following Jesus in these terms?  How easy is it to follow Jesus if following Him means denying ourselves and picking up our cross?  Why is this teaching fundamental to the Christian faith?

Passage for Tomorrow: Mark 8:35-8:36