A single lady was asked for her favorite verse of scripture. She said it was Matthew 16:24, “If any man will come after me, let him....”

She was referring, of course, to the verse in Matthew’s Gospel that reads like this in the King James Version: “Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”

Mark records this same teaching. It reads like this in the New International Version of the Bible: Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Then Jesus adds these powerful words, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it…