Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Proverbs 31
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Luke 9:23-25
Jesus: If any of you want to walk My path, you’re going to have to deny yourself. You’ll have to take up your cross every day and follow Me. If you try to avoid danger and risk, then you’ll lose everything. If you let go of your life and risk all for My sake, then your life will be rescued, healed, made whole and full. Listen, what good does it do you if you gain everything—if the whole world is in your pocket—but then your own life slips through your fingers and is lost to you?
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
From the baby boomer generation on, we have continued down a slippery slope of self indulgence. Almost everything we do as a society and as individuals starts with this unconscious question, “What’s in it for me?” We want to know the payback on everything we do. There are even instructions on how to work a room so that you don’t waste time with people who cannot benefit your long term goals. Conversation tips that help you know if they can add to your bottom line and if not, how to move out of the conversation quickly without making them an enemy.
We want to know the best return on our money and how quickly our investments can double or triple so we have plenty for our comfortable retirement. We want to figure out how we can retire at fifty so we can really enjoy our later years without struggling with the maladies of old age while we travel to exotic places and enjoy that retirement nest egg we’ve built for ourselves.
We want everything and we want it now. Oh, and we want all of it at no cost, no sacrifice to us personally or to those closest to us. We want it all. Period. Each generation seems to get a little worse than the one before. No one seems to want to look out for anyone but number one. That’s the way of the world today. But that is counter to what Jesus tells us to do. He says to take up our cross and follow Him. What did He do? He gave up everything for us. Even His life.
The writers of the New Testament letters continue this same theme. Die to self. Crucify your old life. Take up your cross. Let Christ live in you. Be transformed. Let baptism be the demonstration of death to self and life in Christ. There is this radical change that happens when we really give ourselves to Christ. We give up the rights to our will and let Him decide our course. Where most of the English translations use the same word, life, for the Greek words bios and zoe, they are different concepts in the Greek language. Christ gives us new zoe when He comes to abide in us.
Zoe is the reason for living. It is the purpose and direction behind our biological processes. It is the drive that pushes us toward a given goal in these seventy or eighty years we breath air and consume food on this planet. Bios describes that physiological process that we call life. Breathing, blood circulating through our body, the various processes that make this body move and and respond to various external stimuli. But zoe is why it all takes place. It is the purpose for which we live.
Jesus tells us be willing to suffer for the zoe He gives us. Don’t sacrifice your new zoe in Him for some temporal pleasure your bios might feel. Real life, zoe, is found in Him and that life goes on forever. Our physical frame dies, but our life goes on. And when we discipline our physical life, our bios to do what He tells us, to reach the goals He sets for us, we gain real life, zoe, the purpose He designed for us. But the reverse is also true. If we sacrifice the purpose for which God created us for the simple pleasures of this physical frame, we lose the real life, the real purpose and joy God intends for us. And His purpose and joy last for eternity, not just the few years we remain in these bodies of clay.
So what must we do to take up our cross and follow Him? I think if we focus on the second part, we will understand the first part. When we follow Him, we will find the cross we must bear. When we follow His commands, we will discover the world will not like what we do and we will suffer at the hands of those who do not wish the message of God spread to a world in desperate need of hearing it. It’s not hard now days to find crosses, but it is hard to find the path Jeus would have us follow. There are many false prophets that will tell you what you want to hear instead of the truth in God’s word.
Listen to Jesus. Read God’s word. Read for yourself the truth He gives us in the book that has survived every attempt to snuff it out. You’ll know the truth and the world will give you a cross if you follow it’s path.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.