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Mark 8:31 - 38 - Jesus fortells His death and resurrection.

Jesus begins to teach His disciples that He must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after 3 days rise again. And He said this plainly to them.

Peter, however, took Jesus aside and rebuked Him.

From a plain man's view, the Messiah was not the one meant to die. He was the one to restore Israel, to save them. To Peter, Jesus's death would make this impossible. Furthermore, it would likely have been discouraging to the disciples to hear this.

Jesus rebukes Peter instead, telling him to get behind Him, for Peter set his eyes on the things of man and not of God.

He then tells the crowd - if anyone is to follow Him, he must first deny himself and take up his cross and follow Him. For whoever loses his life for Jesus's sake will save it - and what good is it for a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his soul?

Jesus tells them that our soul is most important, and to follow Him, we need to give up many things of this world. The path to follow Jesus is not a easy one.

However, Jesus ends off with the promise. He tells the crowd they cannot offer anything to give to God in exchange for the redemption of their souls. He does, however, tell them - if they are put to shame for Him and His words in this sinful generation, He will be ashamed in the glory of the Father - He will take their sins on Himself.

This is the gospel Jesus came to bring. We cannot save ourselves, but He will - if we are to live according to His message, and oppose the world in these things.
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