Understanding Jesus
“But what about you?” he asked, “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “The Christ of God.” Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected … and he must be killed …” Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it” Luke 9:20-24
Jesus didn’t speak of the cost of discipleship until His disciples understood who He really was.
It seems that the greater our understanding of who Jesus really is, the greater our call to pay the price for that understanding.
As we understand Jesus’ Kingship, we see our need for subservient humility. He is everything; by comparison we are nothing.
As we see how the world rejected Him and subjected Him to such suffering, so we must be rejected and experience the same suffering. Because He suffered everything, no suffering on our part for Him is too great.
As we see the great demarcation between God’s heaven and this earth, between light and darkness, and how Jesus paid the price to honour heaven by walking in that light, we see the price we will pay by walking heaven’s way, in the same light, following our Saviour.
The more exacting our revelation of Jesus, the more life will exact from us.
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