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The Gospel of Mark Chapter 8:34-9:13 True Discipleship 8:34 - 9: 1. 8.34. Then Jesus called the crowd, along with his disciples, and said to them, "If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. The qualifications that the Lord requires for anyone who desires to be His disciples are the same as it was for the twelve He had especially chosen. For here He calls all the people to Him that they may clearly understand what it would mean to be His disciples. “Whoever will come after” that is whoever decides to join or identify themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ to be one with Him. He must “deny himself”, forget, disown, lose sight of himself and his own interests and should not seek to please himself. The Lord Jesus Christ desires that his disciples should be in that relationship with Him as Paul the apostle was where we can say “I count everything as loss compared with the possession of the priceless privilege of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord, and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him... for His sake I have lost everything and consider it to be mere rubbish, in order that I may be the possession of Christ“ (Phil. 3:8 Amp). If we would be wholly Christ's then we have to give up all claims on ourselves and willingly say that I am no longer my own for I have been bought with a great price and renounce all claim on myself and give all into the hands of Christ Jesus. As followers of Christ we must be prepared to take up his cross (the original word meant stake). The people of Christ's day would have been familiar with the sight of criminals carrying the cross that they would be crucified on. To the disciples the full meaning of Christ's words here would not be fully understood until after He had borne His cross and be crucified. So what was Jesus saying to them and to us that we must bear a cross and be crucified? I believe that He is saying three things here, firstly that as it was the Father's purpose for Jesus to come into the world and give His life for us suffering the shame and reproach of the cross as disciples we to must give our lives in sacrificial service to Him and be willing to do whatever He asks of us no matter what the cost. Secondly that we must put off the flesh with its passions and lusts (Rom 13:13 - 14) and thirdly spiritually identifying ourselves with Christ in His death (Rom. 6: 6) Having deny ourselves and taken up our cross we are to follow Him. In the children's game of "follow the leader" you have to copy everything the leader does and that is what Jesus was saying here that He is our leader and we are to not copy as a mere form but follow the example and standard of His life (1 Pet. 2: 21).