Then [Jesus] called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” Mark 8:34–38
Not everyone wants to be a disciple of Christ. To want to be a disciple of Christ, one must first believe that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of God, sent by God the Father to save the world from the dominion of sin. To be a disciple, one must be willing to repent of sin, of living independent of and without reference to Jesus, of thinking they can “make it” on their own without fellowship with God.
For one to be a disciple of Christ, he or she must be attracted to Christ, to his impeccable character, to his forgiving love for sinners, to his bold denunciation of religious hypocrites and to his message about the kingdom of God. For one to be a disciple, he or she must believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that he died for their sins, that he rose from the dead, that he is alive forever and that he is equal with the Father.
If a person is predisposed to want to be a disciple of Christ, Jesus warns him or her that it is not going to be easy! His disciples must deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow him. Anything less would result in failed disciples. Jesus had told the crowd and his disciples all these when he was still “popular” with the people, before the people turned against him and demanded his crucifixion. Most of those who were attracted to him were going to fall away from him when he is arrested and accused of blasphemy, when he is sent for trial and when he is made to carry his cross from the court to the Golgotha for his execution.
Instead of promising glory and peace and a blessed life to his disciples, he tells them that it was going to be super tough. If they cared for their lives, they were going to have to abandon any love they had for their own lives — they had to be willing to give up their very lives for the sake of Christ and the gospel. The paradox that Jesus tells them is that if they forsook their lives for him and the kingdom, they would then find their lives. And if they hung on to their dear lives, not willing to give up their lives for Christ, they would end up losing their lives.
This describes the predicament that many in the world, many people we might actually know, have. It may even describe you! Not being willing to sacrifice our lives, we unfortunately do not get to preserve our lives. There is a heavy price for discipleship: It will cost the disciple everything. Unless he or she is willing to pay this price, he or she cannot be Christ’s disciple. Not that Jesus would reject them — after all, he welcomed the crowd that came to him — but that they would each surely fall away from him, as many in the crowd did.
A ‘good life’ in this world would be all a person who does not know God or Christ has. When this life is done, it is over. There is no treasure in heaven, no room in heaven that awaits. Once this life is lived, it is to be accounted for, before God. For it is appointed for men to die once and then to face judgment — Hebrews 9:27. Inevitably (whether believed in the present or not), every person will stand before God and Jesus Christ. Does one not want to have lost his or her life for the sake of Christ when they stand before him?
Indeed, what good is it to gain the whole world and lose their soul? This is a question that every person has to ask himself and herself. It does not take much convincing to acknowledge that we have finite lifespans in this world — for folk who have lived a long time, they can attest to how their years seem to have gone by in a flash. The psalmist reflects:
Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due. Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:10–12)
The blessed life is one spent in service and worship of God our Creator. To truly serve and worship him, we must be redeemed. Jesus Christ has come to redeem us for God — we need to belong to God twice. The first time is by default: we belong to God by virtue of being his creature. The second time is by choice: we belong to God by adoption into his family by believing in the Son of God who loved us and gave his life for us.