Ryan's Journal

Sermon notes. Dave Swain, High Rock. Matthew 16:...? Doh, threw away program. Should write a Bible verse auto-link generator. Anyways, Jesus talking to disciples about His death to come, Peter rebukes Him because of his own desire to not lose the significance he's found in following the Son of God. Jesus tells him how to be His disciple: deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me. We often take denying ourselves to mean treating ourselves like nothing, devaluing ourselves - but doing those things as a solution to denying self really only makes us more self-absorbed. Trying to find our own significance really takes away from true significance in Christ. Because denying ourselves really means seeing ourselves the way God does and not the way we want to - so going for suffering for suffering's sake, becoming a doormat, and doing whatever anybody else wants is not true self-denial. It's an unhealthy aceticism. Taking up our cross does not include the things that afflict us that we have no control over, rather it's going out and following Him voluntarily, taking with it whatever comes with following Him. Lastly, we really can't learn unless we are following Him. Obeying His words, doing what He did while He was here - that's following Him, that's how we learn from Him.

You must login to leave a comment