Life Is A Beach

(Losing to Gain)

Part 1 – The Comfortable Illusion

It sounds so inviting: Life is a beach.

The phrase promises calm tides, soft sand, a life where the hardest choice is whether to nap or swim. We crave that ease. Sometimes we even remake God in that image—faith as a sunny getaway where problems dissolve like footprints in the sand.

But Jesus disrupts that dream. Luke tells us He was praying alone when He asked His disciples, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” and then, “But who do you say that I am?”

Peter answered with triumph, “You are the Christ of God.” For a heartbeat everything seemed perfect.

Then came the shock: “The Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, be killed, and on the third day be raised. If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”

No soft sand there. No vacation-style religion. Right after the highest confession came the hardest call.

Why Jesus Starts With Identity

Everything begins with who Jesus is.

If He is only a wise teacher, we can admire Him and stay on the lounge chair. If He is merely a miracle worker, we can show up for blessings and slip away when life gets costly. But if He is the Christ of God, the living Son who came to save, He has claim on every breath we take.

Peter spoke the right title but imagined the wrong kind of Messiah—one who would conquer Rome and make Israel great, not one who would conquer sin through suffering.

We share his confusion whenever we want Easter without Good Friday, a crown without a cross, spiritual thrill without spiritual discipline.

A Collision of Worlds

In the Roman world a cross wasn’t jewelry. It was an execution stake planted beside the highway to warn rebels.

When Jesus told ordinary men and women to “take up the cross daily,” they pictured a death march. He meant it.

Our age dresses the gospel in softer clothes: “Find your best life now.” “Add Jesus to your portfolio.”

But Jesus doesn’t fit in a beach bag. He is Lord. To follow Him is to let His Spirit crucify self-rule so His life can rise within us.

Recognizing the Illusion

Where does the beach mindset live in us?

Maybe in the career we guard at all costs, the comfort we refuse to surrender, the bitterness we protect because forgiveness would hurt our pride. Each choice may look small, but together they build a fortress of self-preservation.

Jesus pierces the walls with one sentence: “Deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow Me.”

This is not harshness; it is rescue. The self we cling to is already perishing. He invites us to lose what we cannot keep to gain what we cannot lose.

The Spirit’s Role

And we are not left alone. Pentecost proves that. The Spirit who raised Jesus now lives in His people. He makes self-denial joyful instead of grim, fuels daily obedience, and turns ordinary sacrifices into channels of resurrection power.

The same Spirit who filled timid disciples with boldness will give courage to forgive, to witness, to love enemies, to choose integrity when compromise would be easier.

Jesus stands at the water’s edge of our illusions, asking, “Who do you say that I am?”

The answer cannot remain theory. It will either keep us on the sand or move us to the narrow road.

---

Part 2 – The Call to the Cross

Jesus’ next words carry no fine print:

“If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.”

This is not a call for an elite few. Anyone means every disciple in every generation. There is no Christianity without the cross.

Deny Yourself

To “deny yourself” means more than giving up dessert. The Greek word is the same used when Peter later denied Jesus—to disown. It is saying, “I am no longer the ultimate authority in my own life.”

Our culture shouts the opposite: “Be true to yourself! Follow your heart!” Jesus invites us to something far richer: die to the false self so the true, Spirit-filled self can live.

This is not self-hatred; it is Spirit-led freedom. We surrender not because God wants to diminish us, but because only He can give the abundant life we were made for.

Take Up Your Cross Daily

The cross was Rome’s cruelest instrument, a visible sentence of death. To carry it meant there was no turning back.

Daily cross-bearing is not a single heroic gesture but a thousand quiet surrenders: forgiving when you could retaliate, choosing honesty when a lie would be convenient, giving when it costs.