Stand Up 4 Jesus

Stand Up 4 Jesus
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. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. Luke 9:23-26
Most of the problems we encounter in life are of our own doing. When I do marriage counseling for instance, almost without fail the number one problem is selfishness on parts of both spouses. Most marriage issues could be solved if just one of the spouses would put this verse into practice. Deny yourself and take up your cross daily & follow Jesus! To deny yourself simply means to quit doing what you want. Taking up your cross daily means to bear up under and plow through whatever you have to crucify your own flesh and feed your spirit man so you can follow Jesus in every situation!
These verses help us to put things into perspective. When this life is over and we are standing face to face with the King of kings and the Lord of lords how pitiful is all our acts of selfishness going to look. Will the excuses we give each other be brought up before the Lord? I think not. I think when we look Him in the eye, we will know even as we are known. Jesus will look right through us and see directly into our soul! What’s the condition of your soul this morning?
If we don’t like the consequences we are reaping right now, then it’s time to look at the decisions we’ve been making and the seeds we’ve planted and correct those decisions and make them right and begin to start planting good seeds so we can reap good things in the future! It really is as simple as the choices we make! If we will deny ourselves and take up our cross daily we will like the decisions we make much better and we will also like the consequences of our choices much better. Not to say that life will suddenly be a bed of roses because it won’t, but we will start to see the big picture a lot better and our focus will be on heavenly rewards instead of earthly rewards. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Luke 12:34
Consumed by the call,
Pastor Marty