THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE I WANT TO KILL...

There are some Christians...I really want to kill...No, not kill...That's not what Jesus really taught, is it?  So what did Jesus teach?

²¹ From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

 ²² Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

 ²³ Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

²⁴ Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵ For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. ²⁶ What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? ²⁷ For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

Matthew 16:21-27 (NIV)

Okay, but what does that have to do with wanting to kill certain people?  Well, it should be obvious, as a Christian, there are no people I want to literally kill.   I bare no people group or individual a wish or plan for their death.  What I'd like is for my fellow Christians to die, of free choice, the way Jesus teaches we must die.  Now some well meaning Christian will say something like, "Yes, Jesus is telling us to come and die with him on his cross."
  
In Matthew 16:21-27 Jesus ISN'T teaching about his cross.  If Jesus had been speaking about his cross he would never have said, "...take up your cross, and follow..."  No one, except Jesus, could carry or die on the cross of Jesus Christ.  ONLY ONE HUMAN IN ALL OF HISTORY...past, present, and future could die on the cross of Jesus Christ...JESUS CHRIST.  Now it is true, we are taught in Scripture, that we have been crucified with Christ, but again, Matthew 16:21-27, IS NOT where Jesus is teaching that we die with him on his cross.  DO NOT MAKE THE TERRIBLE MISTAKE OF ASSUMING... Remember what ASSUME means... (you make an "ass" out of "u" and someone named "MMM")

Now what exactly; precisely; specifically is Jesus talking about when he tells us, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me..." Vs. 24??!!   The answer to this is very easy...What comes right before Jesus' commands to "deny", "take up," and "follow" in Matthew 16:24?? 

 ²² Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

 ²³ Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

Someone explain to me, please, how Jesus is talking about dying on his cross, when clearly; without any doubt; it's obvious Jesus is addressing Simon Peter's rebuke, and Simon Peter's opposition to Father God's purpose, plan, and perfect will for Jesus??!!   Jesus isn't pulling this lesson out of thin air.  Jesus is directly addressing Peter's self-centered, self-serving, and utterly human (satanic!!) way of thinking!   Someone is going to say to me, "NOW HOLD ON ONE MINUTE!!!  JESUS IS SIMPLY REBUKING PETER..."   That is absolutely and utterly unsupportable by what the text says!!  If Jesus is only rebuking Peter why then does he turn and address all of his disciples???  Jesus isn't merely rebuking Peter, he is also telling us exactly what the root of the human problem is: MERELY HUMAN THINKING.  What's more Jesus tells us what, or rather "WHO" the wellspring of "merely human thinking" is:  SATAN!
 
For me Matthew 16:21-27 begs a very important question: 

"Which of us doesn't think like a "mere" human being?  I think the way other humans; or "mere" human beings think.  I can't help but think like a mere human, because I am MERELY human!!"

Jesus isn't merely addressing Peter's shortsightedness, he is addressing what is at the heart of humanity's problem:  SINCE THE FALL, DUE TO SIN, ALL OF HUMAN KIND IS BORN, SPIRITUALLY, IN THE LIKENESS AND IMAGE OF SATAN.   God created us in the likeness and image of God, and we still all bear the appearance of, BUT!...  BUT!! When the first of our species sinned our spiritual nature has been cast in the image and likeness of the one who lead us into sin, and keeps us enslaved to sin.  We are, all of us, with the exception of Jesus of Nazareth, born with the same spiritual defect:  We are like our father; "the ruler of this world"; Satan.  We, all of us, just like Satan, oppose God!   Jesus isn't merely rebuking Peter, he is taking the opportunity to reveal what is in Peter's "merely" human heart, but also what is in the hearts of every "mere" human being.
 
Do not make the error, of believing that Jesus is speaking of "his cross," in Matthew 16.  Jesus is speaking exclusively of "your" cross; "my" cross; "our" crosses as "mere humans".   When Jesus says "your" cross he is telling us something about ourselves; he is telling us, in no uncertain terms, what our "merely" human way if thinking, being, and doing creates for us:  A CROSS.   Jesus is telling us that the way we live is the most horrible, shameful, slowly torturous, agonizing ways to die.  When Jesus says, "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me..."  Jesus is saying...

STOP TRYING TO FIX YOURSELVES!  STOP MANIPULATING, USING AND ABUSING OTHERS!  STOP, "I DID IT MY WAY!!"  YOUR WAY IS JUST A HELLISH DEATH ON A CROSS YOU ARE MAKING FOR YOURSELVES!!!  JUST PICK UP THAT WORTHLESS, F***ED UP WAY OF LIFE, OF YOURS, AND FOLLOW ME WITH IT!!"

(Just so you know that is the "Lonnie" paraphrase of Matthew 16:24.  If you want to flower it up, and turn it into King James speak, feel free, but I like my way of understanding it, because it's absolutely true of how I was and how I lived my life, before Jesus Christ).

If you follow where I'm going with this is, does this mean that Jesus is saying, "come with me so I can put you to death on your cross?"   Jesus isn't saying anything about dying on "your" cross or me dying on "my" cross.  How do we know Jesus isn't telling us, in Matthew 16:24, "...to come follow and die on "your" cross?? Jesus has already told us in Matthew 11:28:

  “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."  

When Jesus says, "Take up your cross, and follow...," He is telling us to follow him to the place of freedom, eternal life, peace and joy unspeakable, in the presence of God!!!  The road to life is first, to stop thinking, being, and doing the way the world around us thinks, lives, and behaves.  The Holy Spirit through St. Paul explains this further in Ephesians 4:17-24:

¹⁷ So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. ¹⁸ They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. ¹⁹ Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.

²⁰ That, however, is not the way of life you learned ²¹ when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. ²² You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; ²³ to be made new in the attitude of your minds; ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;"

CHRISTIANS,  CUT THE CRAP!!!!

AND DIE TO YOUR "MERELY HUMAN" WAY OF THINKING, BEING, AND DOING!!! 

PUT ON CHRIST!!

(Lonnie's Paraphrase of Ephesians 4:17-24)