Jesus says if we follow Him it is by denying ourselves and taking up our cross. Is that saying we have to negate the self like Eastern religion? No, He promises that, like Him, if we lay down our lives we will find ourselves and our life. We have constructed a false self apart from God and Jesus says you must lose that false self, be born again, in order to find the true self, immersed in the creator and lover of your soul. Our forever identity is bound up in our story meshing into God's story and that was the original intent for our lives. Paul tells us what the contours of that life should look like in the Romans passage. In the reading from Exodus we see Moses, at 80, already having lived two lives, one in Pharaoh's household as a child but knowing his real identity. A second lifetime spent taking care of his father in law's sheep is suddenly burst in upon by God speaking to him from a burning bush at the foot of a mountain. That encounter is to call Moses to his real purpose, to re-insert him into God's redemptive story for His people. It's never too late and you're never too old or too lost for God to find you when it's time.
Exodus 3:1-15, Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 16:21-28
