Take Up the Cross and Follow Him^(A)

^24 (B)Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and ^(C)follow Me. ²⁵ For ^(D)whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

Christ the Power and Wisdom of God^(A)

¹⁸ For the ^[a]message of the cross is ^(B)foolishness to ^(C)those who are perishing, but to us ^(D)who are being saved it is the ^(E)power of God.

¹⁷ For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, ^(A)not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.

²⁴ And those who are Christ’s ^(A)have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

²⁰ I have been ^(A)crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh ^(B)I live by faith in the Son of God, ^(C)who loved me and gave Himself for me.

¹⁴ But God forbid that I should boast except in the ^(A)cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by ^[a]whom the world has been crucified to me, and ^(B)I to the world.

^10 (A)always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, ^(B)that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. ¹¹ For we who live ^(C)are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.