The Call

Luke 9:23-24 (NIV) Then he said to them all: "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."

During the time of the Roman Empire, a criminal or captive, on their way to being crucified was often forced to carry his cross part of the way to the crucifixion site, carrying his cross through the middle of the city."
Jesus's disciples from Galilee knew what he meant, for they had seen hundreds of men executed by this means in their region. Why would Jesus use such an image of horror and disdain? I think he wants the disciples to read the fine print of the contract and it has survived in scripture so that we too will know what is in the fine print. In the previous passage, Jesus predicts his own death and alludes to hs ressurection and then he issues the call. It is "The Call" of all who say they love God and want to follow Jesus Christ, deny yourself, daily, carry your cross, and follow....Him.

The church seems to have a hard time saying no these days. We are called to purity, holiness, honesty, constancy, self control, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, faith, love, joy but there is a lot of indulgence. During the time of the middle ages the good works of the clergy were sold as indulgences for the sins of the congregants. If you messed up a contribution could cover an indiscretion, pay your way to heaven, with no guilt. The money raised supported the church (and clergy), sweet deal. It went like this: "Church officials argued that clergy were doing more good works then they needed to; they had, you might say, more than good works in their spiritual accounts than they had sins to pay for. Why not sell them? So selling the good works of the church was precisely what the church did. With the approval of the pope, individual bishops could sell indulgences which more or less paid off any temporal punishment or good works that the individual believer had accumulated in the previous year. It substituted the good works of the Catholic clergy for the good works required of the individual believer. Proof of this substitution was in the indulgence itself, which was a piece of paper, like a piece of money or a check, that certified that the good works of the clergy had paid off the "good works debt" of the individual believer."
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/INDULGE.HTM
The attitude of " I'm a good person, I don't do bad things" and therefore "Jesus loves me" is dangerous thinking. Yes Jesus loves me and you, but he loves us too much to allow us to continue to indulge ourselves in sin. Addictions and overeating will lead to physical death and disease. Greed, self absorbtion, at the end of it all leaves you feeling empty. That is why we feel guilt and that is why we try to assuage it with more self indulgence, like a aspirin or tylenol to take away the pain of being separated from our real authentic love, God and his true purpose and authentic call for our lives. What are you stuffing, packing, drinking, smoking, clutching, buying,charging, grabbing, hugging, squeezing, cramming into your life to fill the void? Romans 3:23 (KJV)2 "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" that is all of us. It is time to quit indulging, rationalizing and making excuses. As Americans we are spiritually flabby. We have gotten fat on earthly delights and affluence. It's time to get back to the Call.