“Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?’” Matthew 16:24-26

Everyone wants to save their life, wants their life saved so much that they will grab a rope regardless of who throws it. (Wish I had thought this up on my own, but heard a great preacher yesterday who spoke this) We’ll grab that rope and be brought safely into the boat or onto shore, the question is who then will we follow? You see if we profess we have been saved by Jesus Christ, that our lives have been changed by faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that we have experienced salvation, the new birth into a new life; but then, we follow culture …. Then I submit to you that we haven’t been changed. We haven’t given up our life for life with God, we haven’t picked up and carried the cross of Christ but something else. What will we give up for life, life abundant, holy life? Who do you follow? Christ or culture? In the first line of Called to Be Holy, John Oswalt writes, “The fate of the Christian Church in America and around the world depends upon what the Church does with the biblical doctrine of holiness.” God tells us, we “to be holy as He is holy.” Holiness as defined by God, not ourselves or culture. Who do you follow? Christ or Culture?