Thursday, October 17: “He Has Shown You”

Luke 9: 23, 24: “And [Jesus] was saying to them all, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.’”

There are very few natural-born fans of self-denial; at least, at first glance. The moment we hear the words ‘deny,’ ‘cross,’ ‘daily,’ and ‘follow,’ we suddenly remember we have other plans. But there is no other gospel–this IS the Gospel. It is not a gospel of loss, but a Gospel of gaining our very lives. If we miss that, we miss salvation itself–then wonder where it all went wrong.