IT’S ALL OR NOTHING
34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” Mark 8:34-38
This entire incident at Caesarea Philippi was loaded. First of all, it was a shocking visual spectacle for the disciples to underscore the impact Jesus, His kingdom and His yoke will have on the world systems that ignore the revelation of God and set up their own ungodly system. No matter how tenacious the hold that man-made religions has on people, the power of God’s love, demonstrated by Jesus and His true followers, will break it.
Jesus is the pioneer of this way. He had to go before, unmask and destroy Satan’s deception of the whole world by submitting Himself to Satan’s way – power through control – and coming back from the dead to declare that it is a lie and doesn’t work. The only way that works is ECHAD with the Father so that His way of love is channelled through every believer. The only way to overcome this world system is to allow it to do its worst, and to trust and obey the Father by applying Jesus’ yoke in every situation – His gentleness and humility.
If that way causes embarrassment, Jesus said when you are ridiculed by the world, and then you will be an embarrassment to Him in the presence of the Father. The world’s way – the yetzer harah, and God’s way – the yetzer tov, are diametrically opposed to one another. They cannot function together in one life. Only one mind-set, only one philosophy of life, only one passion, will stand in God’s presence – the way of true discipleship – complete abandonment to Jesus as Lord, willingness to embrace the suffering that accompanies fellowship with Jesus, and the lifestyle of denying self, wearing the Rabbi’s yoke and reconnecting with God’s original man created in His image to be ECHAD with Him.
Every believer needs to make a non-negotiable decision that he no longer belongs to himself, that he has chosen, like Jesus, to let himself be nailed to the cross so that resurrection life may be revealed in him, and to allow God-awareness to overtake self-awareness so that his life will bring “up there, down here.”