Religion & Spirituality
The vision Jesus shared with his disciples when inviting them to follow him is found in Luke 9.23-24. "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it." In this vision, Jesus gives us a slogan and a symbol. The slogan is "come and die" and the symbol is the cross which was a method of torture, humiliation and execution by the Roman government. By telling his disciples to take up the crosses, Jesus defied the idea that death was the most terrifying thing, and suggested that there were worse things than death in the world, and that living in the fear of losing our lives could be one of them. If we give in to this fear, it would rob us of life and we would find ourselves always living stingily and cautiously which is not living at all. "If you're not afraid to lose your lives for my sake," Jesus says, "you might be surprised to find them." Jesus' way to have life and life to the fullest then is not to save it but to spend it, and to give it away!