THE words of Peter in verse 22 prompt Jesus to speak words of great seriousness and importance. Peter's words will seem to us to be reasonably innocuous, and quite natural in the circumstances. It is natural to human nature to avoid conflict with the world, and to avoid placing oneself in danger from the world. Further to this, Peter was expressing the rather worldly aspirations of all the disciples, who believed that the Messiah, when he came, would set up a worldly kingdom, where the Jews would be led by the Christ to victory over all the world and end up being rulers of the world. With this background Peter's words show that he and the other disciples saw everything in terms of life in this world. They had no concept of the condition of the world as viewed by God. They had little understanding of the true nature of human sin, and that it placed the whole world under the wrath of God. For this reason Peter felt that the death of Christ would be a great disaster, and not a great victory wrought by Jesus for the deliverance of sinners out of this world.

Even though we who profess faith and allegiance to Christ know better, we are still prone to be influenced by the attractions of the world, and the desire to avoid all conflict with the world, which may bring trials, pains and discomfort to our daily lives. Christians are still seduced into seeking treasure on earth, rather than treasure in heaven. It is for these reasons that the teaching of Jesus is so cogent, serious and important.

With this introduction let us look at each of these verses which contain this teaching of Jesus, and look with thoughtfulness and serious attention. As we do so we need to pray that we may receive light from the Holy Spirit. We may say that we understand the message and we believe it, but it is so easy to avoid the deep understanding in our hearts which Jesus is seeking we may have. Nor is it sufficient just to understand, and in a superficial way imagine we are living out the words of Jesus here. We need to feel what Jesus is saying as well as understanding with our minds, and from such experience, becoming almost afraid of the ease which causes us to forget or neglect the implications of what Jesus is saying.

Jesus begins in verse 24 by telling us that to be his disciple will mean a cross. It will mean denying ourselves. Following Jesus as Lord in submissive obedience is not an easy thing. Jesus continual warned people that to follow him would not be easy. We who preach tend to avoid placing before people the cost of being a disciple of Jesus. In our eagerness to save souls, we speak loudly and urgently of the wonderful blessings which faith in Christ bestows, and we tend to avoid the fact that to align ourselves with Jesus will bring us into conflict with the world. In John 15 :18ff Jesus warns his disciples that the hate of the world which was directed at him, would also be directed at all whole are his disciples.

As Jesus had a cross to bear, so will every true believer. Our cross is nowhere so severe as the cross Jesus bore. Jesus suffered all the eternal pains of hell in order to save us from these pains. His cross was to bear our sins, and all the wrath of God directed against our sins. He did this to save us from such suffering. Nonetheless to follow Jesus will mean a suffering which Jesus describes as a cross.

Having said this we need to understand what this cross is. Many have supposed this to be sickness, and poverty, and all the other miseries that are common in this earthly life. The cross is not this. Every human being has this suffering, and it has nothing to do with following Christ. The cross which Christians have to bear is the suffering that comes to us because we follow Jesus, obey him, and serve him.

This cross may be an enhancement of the normal sufferings of life because we follow Jesus. Christians have known poverty, persecution, hunger, abuse, losing employment and the like, simply because they follow Jesus. This is the cross which the hate of the world brings upon us. We must not seek to avoid this. Satan inflicts this cross to force us to be unfaithful to Christ, and cut back on our obedience and service to Christ. Satan uses this ploy to keep the believer from giving their all to Jesus.

But there is a more subtle cross than this. Christ demands our life. We have to live to please him, and this will mean mortifying all the deeds of the flesh, and the lusts of the flesh, and the longings of the flesh. The Holy Spirit not only guides and strengthens us, giving us the joy of the gospel, but the Holy Spirit also reveals to us our sinfulness, and exposes our sins and failures, and calls us to repentance, and to crucifying these lusts. This is hard and painful. Satan assaults us with his fiery darts. He is expert in exploiting the lusts of our flesh in temptation, and to resist these temptations brings great suffering. Satan brings evil days upon us which threaten to bring us down into shame and sin, and to stand is so very hard.

Further the cross which is ours as followers of Jesus is that our life is not our own. It belongs to Jesus. Our time, our money, our skills all belong to him, and he may well call us to sacrifice home, position, wealth, cherished hopes, and much more to give ourselves to his service.

We must accept this denying and this cross. Satan will make it seem so unreasonable, but in bearing this cross we will find blessing in the love of Jesus. This cross bearing has no merit in it which deserves reward, but living close to Jesus, and living for him brings the joy and peace in believing which passes all understanding.