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[RECAP] What He wants us to do, is to focus right on Him: through the word of God, through the truth of God, through prayer, through spiritual disciplines, through asking Him, ‘what is it You want done?’ By releasing your business to Him and giving it to Him and identifying Him as the owner. That’s what He wants. He wants you. [END RECAP]

I call you to hear His— If.  If you really want to come behind me; if that’s the driving desire of your life. It’s not a wish, it’s a longing. It’s the cry of your heart. Now you may say to me, ‘wait a minute, hold on, hold on, hold on. I’ve done this.’ I know you have done this. I’m well aware of that. But are you doing it? This is what I discovered, as I moved across the years of life in ministry, I began to realize, you know, it’s not as fresh as it was. I’m caught up in what I have to get done. I want to serve the Lord, that’s why I’m involved, that’s what I want to do. That’s my whole life, but somehow it doesn’t have the same vibrancy that it had.

And what I began to realize was I had to go back again. Because what I discovered was this: what Jesus is talking about is not only an event. Oh, there is an event to it. There’s an event dimension; there is a time when we made our decision. There is a time when you made that decision that He’s called you and that you would go into ministry or there is a time when you made that decision that everything that you have belongs to Him.

Or maybe you haven’t made that decision yet. Not ministry, but just the basic core decision. Everything you have, belongs to Him.

You know, who’s your career manager? It’s a key question. Who’s your career manager? For most of us the answer is, ‘I am. Oh yes siree, I am my career manager.’ Jesus says to you right now, “If you really want to come after Me, if you really want to be identified with Me…” (Mark 8:34) If you just want to be, you know, nice christian who goes to church, like the music, clap your hands, or maybe you like to sing in the choir. That’s great. Either way. Neither here nor there. It’s how you honor God. That’s the passion of your life, just to be there. Jesus says to you, ‘You’re pursuing the interests of man and I want your focus on the interests of God.’ 

And let me tell you how you can focus on the interests of God. Focus on Jesus. Through His word, through these words. Get behind Him, get in line; stop fighting Him. Stop expecting things from Him He’s never guaranteed you. Start trusting Him. Radically release everything to Him.

Because as He says in Mark 8:34, “If anyone, anyone at all really wants to come after Me, to get behind Me, here’s what he must do: he must deny himself. He must renounce himself”. He must do exactly what Peter did, only the opposite, in Mark chapter 14:30-31, and even down into verse 72. Peter denied Jesus, same word, Peter renounced Jesus. What Peter said about Jesus, “I never knew the man, I take an oath” (Matthew 26:72), “I never knew the man,” so we must say to self. To that crown driven, crown seeking, crown longing, power, position, controlling, self protecting part of us, we must say to that, ‘I never knew you. I don’t know you, I renounce you.’

Yes, it’s a struggle, it’s a deep struggle. And we’re often blind to it. We don’t see what it does to us. We don’t hear what it does to us. Because our hearts are hardened, remember? The heart that learns without grasping or perceiving, the heart that looks without seeing, the heart that hears without listening, the heart that acts without impacting - that’s the heart, my friend, that you must get a vision for change. That’s the heart that must be transformed. That’s the heart that must be denied. Let him deny himself as a statement, as a fact, as a decision, yes, as an event that you will come back to again, and again, and again, and reaffirm. And let him bend his back and enter into a death march.

When Jesus said, “let him take up his cross,” I want to tell you that none of His listeners thought of this in a kind of metaphorical sort of way. They understood it in a very real way. I’ll tell you why. Because Mark’s readers lived under Nero’s persecution. They knew that crucifixion was a real possibility for them. It was a reality. Friends and family members had been in that agony of crucifixion, because they belonged to Jesus. At a later time, the Emperor Vespasian, sent Titus the Conquerer to Jerusalem. And under Vespasian some two thousand Jews were crucified. They knew. Those first century Christians knew what Jesus was saying. It was not simply an image, picture, but for them it was real. And for believers around the world, there are places in our world where suffering and persecution are real.

But for the rest of us, the reality is denying self. Now it may call for us to take a stance within society that will get us rejected. But at the very least, it’s a call for us to turn from our selfish interests, from our crown driven, power seeking, position longing hearts to a release of everything. And then Jesus says, “and follow Me.” (Mark 8:34).

 

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