Deny and Seek
Deny and Seek
I have posted on Luke 9:23 before in “Then He Said to Them All” back in April of 2020.
But today I want to go in a different direction. Luke 9:23 is a verse I memorized during college as part of the Topical Memory System by the navigators. It is found in pack “D” Be Christ’s Disciple - Put Christ First along with Matthew 6:33.
”But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.“
Luke tells us to deny ourselves and Matthew tells us to seek first the kingdom of God. How are we doing at that? Do we seek God first? Or do we seek Facebook first? Do we deny ourselves the short-term pleasures and look to God for the long-term benefits?
So what does it look like to us to take up our cross? Jesus just got done telling His disciples that He was going to suffer, be rejected, and killed.
”But He strictly warned and instructed them to tell this to no one, saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day.”
We too should suffer. For as the world, the religious leaders, hated Jesus so we too are to be hated by the ruler of the world who was controlling the religious leaders. The common people did not hate Jesus but saw Him as a prophet at the least and a man of God at the best. Only Peter saw Him as God’s Messiah.
”But you,” He asked them, “who do you say that I am? ” Peter answered, “God’s Messiah! ”
Are we ready to be rejected? Or do we look like the people around us to be accepted by them? Most of us at one time or another developed a habit that helped us fit in. Maybe it was cussing, smoking, drinking, or something else. But what about today have we denied ourselves the ability to do those things that helped us fit in to be included in with Jesus? And at that point, those people will reject us or notice Jesus in us.
Are we ready to be killed? Most of us will not face death for Jesus. But what about those friends we were just talking about? Are we ready to have their friendship killed because we no longer do the things with them that helped us fit in?
”Adulteresses! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the world’s friend becomes God’s enemy.“
So for us, those things that we began to do to fit in need to be our cross to take up daily so that we may die to ourselves and live for God! Now that we know what our cross is we need to deny now we need to seek God and not replace it with another bad habit.
Comments
Post a Comment