“The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.”

When Saint Paul wrote those words to Timothy, he may have had today’s Gospel lesson in mind. Jesus tells us today that if we do not take up our cross and follow him that we are not worthy of Him.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. We know we’re not worthy of Him. We know that we are, as Paul says, faithless. We live our lives as if God does not exist. If we truly believed that God exists and is the sort of God He says He is, we would never for a moment wonder what to do in a moment of trouble. We would pray. We would remind God of His promise to provide us with daily bread. We would know with absolute unfailing certainty that whatever was happening, no matter how evil, God was working it for our good. We would know that because we would always have in mind that God loves us.