Those who do not take up their cross and follow in my steps are not fit to be my disciples.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If any of you want to come with me, you must forget yourself, carry your cross, and follow me.

Then Jesus called the crowd and his disciples to him. "If any of you want to come with me," he told them, "you must forget yourself, carry your cross, and follow me.

For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it; but if you lose your life for me and for the gospel, you will save it.

And he said to them all, "If you want to come with me, you must forget yourself, take up your cross every day, and follow me.

Will you gain anything if you win the whole world but are yourself lost or defeated? Of course not!

"Those who come to me cannot be my disciples unless they love me more than they love father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and themselves as well.

Those who do not carry their own cross and come after me cannot be my disciples.

I have told you this so that you will have peace by being united to me. The world will make you suffer. But be brave! I have defeated the world!"

And I myself will show him all that he must suffer for my sake."

They strengthened the believers and encouraged them to remain true to the faith. "We must pass through many troubles to enter the Kingdom of God," they taught.

so that none of you should turn back because of these persecutions. You yourselves know that such persecutions are part of God's will for us.

For you know the instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

Everyone who wants to live a godly life in union with Christ Jesus will be persecuted;

Christ himself carried our sins in his body to the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness. It is by his wounds that you have been healed.

For Christ died for sins once and for all, a good man on behalf of sinners, in order to lead you to God. He was put to death physically, but made alive spiritually,

Since Christ suffered physically, you too must strengthen yourselves with the same way of thinking that he had; because whoever suffers physically is no longer involved with sin.

Was it not necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and then to enter his glory?"

and explaining the Scriptures, and proving from them that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from death. "This Jesus whom I announce to you," Paul said, "is the Messiah."

It was only right that God, who creates and preserves all things, should make Jesus perfect through suffering, in order to bring many children to share his glory. For Jesus is the one who leads them to salvation.

He had been chosen by God before the creation of the world and was revealed in these last days for your sake.

Righteousness will go before the LORD and prepare the path for him.

I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you.

Those whom God had already chosen he also set apart to become like his Son, so that the Son would be the first among many believers.

Imitate me, then, just as I imitate Christ.

Your life must be controlled by love, just as Christ loved us and gave his life for us as a sweet-smelling offering and sacrifice that pleases God.

The attitude you should have is the one that Christ Jesus had:

if we say that we remain in union with God, we should live just as Jesus Christ did.

This is how we know what love is: Christ gave his life for us. We too, then, ought to give our lives for others!

They won the victory over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the truth which they proclaimed; and they were willing to give up their lives and die.