Easy Following: Daily Thoughts from Mark (Mark 8:34-38)

You’ve heard of “easy listening.”  How about “easy following”?  What is it in us that thinks following Jesus is an option, or that anything less than radically following him is possible?  He doesn’t give us that option. 

Peter has just been rebuked by Jesus for challenging Jesus’ statement that the Son of Man must be rejected by and killed by the Jewish leadership.  Peter doesn’t want to conceive of following Jesus as including suffering, even if it is followed up by rising again from the dead.  Jesus makes it explicit what following him means, even hinting at the means of his predicted death.

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:34-38, ESV) 

Just as Jesus is willing to die for the sake of God and His kingdom, so his followers must be willing.  In fact, whenever we desire to save our own lives, literally and figuratively, in disobedience to the Father and unbelief, our efforts actually work against us gaining real life with Him.  But if, for the sake of the Lord Jesus and the good news message of the gospel, we willingly lose our lives, literally and figuratively, in belief and obedience to Him, we will actually find the life we really wanted.

We could gain everything we think we need to have a safe and productive life and yet lose our souls, lose our relationship to God of faith and obedience, and there is nothing more valuable than our souls.  And when Jesus comes to judge, those who were ashamed of him and sought instead to save their own lives will find that he does not receive them into the glorious kingdom.

“Easy following” is an attempt to maintain our own lives and prevent the suffering we perceive will be ours if we radically follow Jesus, if we actually deny ourselves and take up our cross, our instrument of death.  It is a kind of adulterous way of living, feigning loyalty to the Lord when we’re really in love with ourselves.  But we need an instrument of death constantly, getting rid of the selfishness that ruins our souls.  We need not be ashamed of our Lord.  His leadership is the best and the best for us, and has eternal reward.