Mt 16: 21-27
21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.
As humans, we tend to shun obstacles, challenges and pain, physical as well as spiritual. Our current culture of the "good and easy life", although currently under siege by by the pandemic, we still desire, and long for. It's human nature to seek the path of least resistance, to avoid pain and seek the "cushy life.". Nothing wrong with that, but Jesus urges us to go a step or many steps further and with him take up our cross, willing to lose our life for his sake and find it in following him. What profit would there be in gaining the whole world in exchange for true life? "For the Son of Man will come with his angels to his Father's glory, and then he will repay all according to his conduct." (Mt 16: 27) There is the choice. The right one is obvious. Pray for the courage and stamina to choose it.
Bro. Rene
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