ChosenRebel's Blog

The Apostle Paul’s Testimony

¹¹ To this present hour we hunger and thirst, and are poorly clothed, and roughly treated, and homeless; ¹² and we labor, working with our own hands; when we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure; ¹³ when we are slandered, we try to plead; we have become as the scum of the world, the grime of all things, even until now. . . .

¹⁶ Therefore, I exhort you, be imitators of me.      (1 Cor. 4:11-13, LSB)

Nothing has changed. This is what we are called to. 

Jesus put it this way in Matthew 16:24:

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.

And just in case you want to dismiss this by saying he was only talking to his original twelve, look at what he says here in Mark 8:34:

And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.

And to put a final point on it, check this out in Luke 9:23:

And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.

Nothing has changed. Let’s live this way. Let’s show the world that the way of Jesus is different, more different than anyone has ever imagined. Except for Jesus Himself.

Let’s live passionately for and like Jesus.