Matthew 16:24-28
Difficulty in Following Jesus
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 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.”
Jesus explained to His Disciples the difficulties of following Him...G. K. Chesterton said, "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried."...But why isn't faith something easy to do?...Why isn't belief in Jesus just real easy?...Why does faith require work and daily effort?...Why is faith so difficult?...Why must we deny ourselves to gain faith?...
So there is great difficulty in the following of Jesus' Teachings...Faith is selfless and not selfish...Faith gives much, much more than it takes...Mankind seems to have this intrinsic need to gain the whole world and to forget about the other things of purpose and meaning...And because of this desire to gain and have things, we regularly forget about the soul...For some reason we like to accumulate wealth, power, and fame...And we keep little or no focus on the soul and the One who can save it, faith is found tried and found wanting...Which leaves us with an emptiness, a feeling of absence...