In my reading this morning, I came upon Luke 9:23… again. It is not that I have never seen this verse or heard a message preached on it. I have read it and hear many sermons on it before. But, it slapped me up side the head again this morning. Here is the verse:

Then Jesus said to all the people: If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross each day and follow me.

I hate this part: “you must forget about yourself” Not that I really hate the words that Jesus spoke… but I hate that they tell me to to forget about the person I think about the most. ME! I am selfish. I want what I want, when I want it. If you are honest, you are the same. At the core, we all think about ourselves first because we are selfish beings. You do not think so? Think about this:

1. When you are driving, why do you pull out in front of someone when you know you should really wait?
2. When you see someone else with something new, why do we think that we deserve it too?
3. When you call the pastor up and complain about something, what is the complaint based on? (Usually, our personal preferences!)

See, we all have a built in bias that puts ourselves first. Everything from where we go to eat or deciding to serve somewhere in church is all based on ME and my selfishness. The thing is, Jesus says if we want to follow Him, we have to forget about ourselves. That is hard. It is not natural in our sin nature. But it what we are suppose to do as Christ followers.

So, forget about yourself today. In some small way, deny yourself, take up the cross, and follow hard after Christ!