“If anyone would come after me, he must deny
himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23
NIV
In AD 44, King Herod ordered James the Greater to be thrust
through with the sword. He was the first of the apostles to be martyred. Luke
was hanged from an olive tree in Greece. Doubting Thomas was burned alive in
India. Philip was crucified, and preached from the cross with his dying
breaths. Matthew was stabbed in the back in Ethiopia. Bartholomew was flogged
to death in Armenia. James the Just was thrown off the southeast pinnacle of
the temple in Jerusalem, then clubbed to death by a mob.
Simon the Zealot was crucified by the governor of Syria in
AD 74. Judas Thaddaeus was beaten to death with sticks in Mesopotamia.
Matthias, who replaced Judas Iscariot, was stoned to death and beheaded. Peter
was crucified upside down at his own request. When John the Beloved survived
being put in a caldron of boiling oil, the Emperor Diocletian exiled him to the
island of Patmos.
Now you will probably not be called to die physically for
Christ, but to be His disciple you must die to yourself. Jesus said, “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” (vv. 23-24 NIV).
If you want to find yourself, you must be
willing to lose yourself in the cause of Christ. If you want
to come alive in the fullest sense, you must be willing
to die to all forms of self-centeredness and live for Christ.
Source: Jeffrey, Grant R. The Signature of God. (Frontier Research, 1996). 254-257.
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