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NASB | Mark 8:34 ¶ And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Mark 8:34 ¶ Jesus called the crowd together with His disciples, and said to them, "If anyone wishes to follow Me [as My disciple], he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross [expressing a willingness to endure whatever may come] and follow Me [believing in Me, conforming to My example in living and, if need be, suffering or perhaps dying because of faith in Me]. |
Subject: deny himself, and take up his cross |
Bible Note: Dear Brother John, Just my thoughts: Searcher's question doesn't necessarily imply that he believes in the reality of those so-called "rights." Human beings do tend to cling to things that are imaginary or entirely ephemeral. I think this is what Christ was pointing out in passages like Matthew 5:36 and 6:27. Furthermore, Christ says "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal." (John 12:25 NASB) The fellow who loves his life doesn't really have the power to keep it in the first place, nor does it really even belong to him! But the Lord calls us to relinquish even that clutching of the self-centered life. Instead, we set aside the lie of our own control, and eagerly embrace the truth of God's sovereign control of all things -- including ourselves. Redemption is all turning to the completed work of Jesus as Savior... but simultaneously submitting wholly to Him as Lord. I think maybe what Searcher is doing is what they call cultural contextualization. Contemporary thinking is all about individual freedoms without personal responsibility. A lot of times people articulate that as "rights." Those kinds of rights don't really exist, but the heart of one whom our Lord saves must surrender up that imaginary control; i.e., the lordship of self. Furthermore, a saved person is continually growing in the actuality of this submission (see Colossians 2:6-7). In Him, Doc PS I have been often blessed by the devotions of Thomas a'Kempis. He reminds me of John Bunyan. Like Spurgeon used to say of Bunyan, "If you pricked him he would bleed Scripture." I think that that certainly applied to a'Kempis as well. PSS Did you know that the Romanists almost canonized a'Kempis? However, I am given to understand, that when they exhumed his body for examination -- an integral step in that strange process -- there was some evidence that the poor man may have been buried alive. Consequently, the priests could not vouch for his "state of grace" at the moment of his death. In other words, in their thinking, he may have been so frightened by the experience, that he denied God and lost his salvation. But isn't it amazing what arises out of fundamental misunderstandings of gospel truths? (Note: I have not validated the historicity of these events. They are simply what I recall reading somewhere or another.) |