Matthew 16, (More Reflections on Stan Getting the #$%^ Scared Out of Him)

Jesus: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." (and there's more if you read on.)

Just a few verses before Jesus warned his disciples to be aware of the "yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees." In context, that "yeast" must be legalism.

Yet Jesus words above are, in and of themselves, a law we really can't measure up to. I'm realizing that. We pretend we're losing our life for Him whenever we make some minuscule sacrifice. It's a joke, though. I've tried to re-organize life in many ways to live up to those words. And I believe that is the ideal. Yet much like the Matthew 5-7 stuff ("be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect"), we'll never achieve it. Are these words also just designed to teach us we don't have a chance? Really? I don't want to concede that, because then people will use it as an excuse to blow off even trying. But am I just trapped in a world that is overcome by "the yeast?" Or, am I just pathetic in my inability to live up to this standard?

I'm also reading Brothers K by Dostoevsky. Great dialogue in there about Christian martyrdom and whether one who would chicken out and refuse to die for his faith is really any less qualified for God's grace than one who would allow himself to be flayed alive. It's the same debate I'm having over Jesus' words above. Deep stuff, and no easy solution. Just trust . . . .