Love Worthy of Our Life
William Temple, a twentieth-century English bishop, once concluded a sermon to Oxford students with the words of the hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” But he cautioned against taking the song lightly. “If you mean [the words] with all your hearts, sing them as loud as you can,” Temple said. “If you don’t mean them at all, keep silent. If you mean them even a little, and want to mean them more, sing them very softly.” The crowd went quiet as everyone eyed the lyrics. Slowly, thousands of voices began to sing in a whisper, mouthing the final lines with gravity: “Love so amazing, so divine / Demands my soul, my life, my all.”
Those Oxford students understood the reality that believing in and following Jesus is a serious choice, because it means saying yes to a radical love that demands everything from us. Following Christ requires our entire life, our whole being. He plainly told His disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). No one should make this choice flippantly.
Yet following Jesus is also the way to our deepest joy. Life with Him, we’ll discover, is the life we truly desire. It appears to be a great paradox. However, if we respond to God’s love, believe in Christ, and relinquish our selfish, shortsighted demands, we’ll find the life our soul craves (v. 25).
By Winn Collier - Bread Ministries
Matthew 16:21-28 (NIV)
Jesus Predicts His Death
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.
28 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
