#26. June 29, 2015
2015 Devotional. Our goal for these weekly devotionals is to grow in humility and to grow spiritually by memorizing selected passages, putting them into context, and by applying them to our daily living. These passages are taken from: “100 Verses Every Christian Needs to Know” by Freeman-Smith. All passages are from the NIV.
Luke 9:23-24
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. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.
In the NIV Luke nine has nine major divisions and is full of the major themes from Jesus’ ministry on earth. The verses we are memorizing are in the context of discipleship verses 20-26. The end of the chapter (v. 57-62) is more definitive of the cost of discipleship. Jesus gives us several examples of those who want to follow Him but life gets in the way.
Do you wants to follow Jesus? Is the Holy Spirit at work in you to make a full commitment to follow Jesus but things get in the way? I don’t mean going to church as important as that is. I don’t mean studying God’s Word as essential as that is. I don’t mean living as Christians at home and with family as imperative as that is. Following Jesus means that His humility, His spirituality, His compassion, His love, and His forgiveness are applied to all areas of our lives. It means making disciples: praying for and seeking the lost, showing direction to those who have lost their way, loving and helping those stuck in a destructive life with no way out on their own. God wants to reconcile mankind back to Him, and he uses followers of Jesus to do it! (II Cor. 5:11-21) “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:”
The above is the Great Commission that Jesus commands and continues to command to all those who follow Him (Mt. 28:16-20). If Jesus is visible today, His love, His forgiveness, all of His perfect human attributes, they can only be found in Scripture and among true followers of Jesus. This is what Jesus is talking about in Lk. 9:23-24 Where Jesus says: “Take up their cross daily and follow me” Jesus carried his cross willingly, knowing he would be crucified on it. Are we willing to deny ourselves like Jesus did always putting others before ourselves, willing to give our lives to follow Jesus? Saving ones life, as Jesus puts it, means to have only earthly ambitions, living only for ourselves, grabbing all we can out of this physical life with no thought about the after life. Living apart from our Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in this life take away our eternal life with Him. The opposite of that kind of earthly living is losing our life to follow Jesus and having eternal life with God. Does that mean only suffering in this earthly life? No! Not necessarily, but it may, many Jesus followers are persecuted in many places today. Even so, as a general rule those who follow Jesus rejoice, live longer, are happier, have peace, love more than those who do not follow Him, and have eternal life beginning the day we commit to follow Him. That is what Jesus means in Verse 24: “whoever loses their life for me will save it.” Praise God!
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Heavenhigh 
Amen.
Being a Jesus follower is a daily struggle. How do I use this day for His purpose?
At the end of the day, what have I done in His name?
May His Spirit continue to lead me and guide me always.
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