Mark 8:3:34-38 The Cost Of Discipleship.

There is a cost to following Jesus – self-denial. This doesn’t mean that we cease to be whole persons with all our own uniqueness. What it does mean is that we follow Jesus wherever he leads, and we do so in his strength and not our own (v. 34). Jesus does not save us from the cost of following him. He saves us from sin. In fact, giving oneself to the Lord and the message of the gospel, will cause one to suffer (v. 35). Labouring for no other reason than to constantly acquire, while ignoring the condition of one’s soul, is to love death (v. 36). The only thing one can give in exchange for a guilty soul, is the once for all finished work of Jesus the Christ (v. 37). This was and remains the gospel message that Jesus preached, and the estimate of his person which he sought to drive home here (v. 38). Some were ashamed of the very idea that this Anointed One must suffer and die, as there are still others since then to this day. However, what others may be ashamed of all true followers of Jesus cling to as our only hope, from the very beginning until the judgment day when “He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels (v. 39).