{"id":181,"date":"2014-03-14T11:14:49","date_gmt":"2014-03-14T11:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parkwood.org\/blog\/?p=181"},"modified":"2015-03-03T18:45:59","modified_gmt":"2015-03-03T18:45:59","slug":"an-inconvenient-faith-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/an-inconvenient-faith-9\/","title":{"rendered":"An Inconvenient Faith (9)"},"content":{"rendered":"

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”<\/em> (Luke 9:23, 24)<\/p>\n

Yesterday we looked at the necessity for “willingness” to be a part of sacrifice.\u00a0 We say with the prophet Isaiah, “Here I am, send me”.\u00a0 It is the beginning of discipleship.\u00a0 We are submitting to the leadership of Jesus.\u00a0 Jesus talked about what it meant to come after Him in the verses above very plainly and the first requirement is to deny ourselves.\u00a0 Yielding our heart and life to Him involves sacrifice.\u00a0 It means that we give up our rights to govern our own lives and allow Him to direct us.\u00a0 It does not mean that we deny our individuality or our unique place in His creation.\u00a0 Quite the opposite, we turn from our selfish ideas of what we should become and embrace what we were created to be.\u00a0 Paul said it this way:<\/p>\n

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.\u00a0 The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”<\/em> (Galatians 2:20)<\/p>\n

This discipleship begins with sacrifice but it is followed by obedience.\u00a0 Jesus not only asks us to deny ourselves but to “take up our cross daily and follow”.\u00a0 Jesus knew why He had come…to demonstrate his love for us by dying on the cross and restoring a broken relationship.\u00a0 But He also came as an example for us to follow.\u00a0 He did more than demonstrate love, He calls us to “follow” His example!\u00a0 The cross is not only what Christ did for us but something He leads us to.\u00a0 “This is how you should love”.<\/p>\n

Jesus turns the definition of life upside down.\u00a0 If you want to save your life you will lose it.\u00a0 If you think this is all about you and what’s best for you…you missed the point.\u00a0 True life, a fulfilled life, a life of love can only be experienced when it is given up.\u00a0 Jesus went to the cross for us and now bids us to follow.\u00a0 Are you willing?\u00a0 Jesus said this:<\/p>\n

“Greater love has no one than this, that He lay down his life for his friends.”<\/em> (John 15:13)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” (Luke … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-an-inconvenient-faith-2014-lenten-blog","category-all_posts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions\/187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}