Following Jesus Christ Part 1!

‘Then Jesus began to tell them [His disciples] that the Son of Man must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead. As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things.

Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”

Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my message in these adulterous and sinful days, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”’ – Mark 8:31-38 NLT

We often hear “make your life most of it because you live only once” or something like this. This saying has got an acronym, which is ‘Y.O.L.O.’ Our inclination is to live our lives up to full potential on how we want to be lived out. In other words, we try to make many opportunities as possible. However, Jesus Christ gives His disciples and everyone a strict teaching. The teaching is to give our lives up to Him. The reason that Jesus has given this teaching is probably because He is the way of truthful life (John 14:6). When we read John 14:6-7, we notice that He is the bridge between humans and God. I believe this is the main reason that Jesus Christ made Himself as a human beings and dwelt on the earth a couple of centuries ago (Hebrews 2:14-15). In fact, the Bible states that He was the perfect image of God. This means that God sent Himself into the world to be crucified on the cross. Since God knows everything and people do not (Romans 11:33-36), He let Jesus to be crucified, to make Him a perfect bridge between God and people through faith. I cannot stop sinning to God. There were probably many times I failed to be a perfect follower of Jesus. Because of we cannot be perfect followers of Jesus Christ, God has poured His Spirit into us, to make us holy and perfect in Him (Hebrews 10:14). Therefore, we have to let the Holy Spirit to overtake us and renew our minds to do the will of God (Romans 12:1-2).

Tomorrow, we are going to conclude this devotional series by looking at Mark 8:34-38 with different perspective. Ask yourself a question today: “Am I living up to my own standard of life, or am I living up to God’s standard through the Holy Spirit?” If you are living up to your own standard of life, then meditate on Romans 12:1-2 and make it as your life Bible verses today!