My word gives you the promise of victory. It speaks a great deal of success and triumph. It also speaks of laying down your life and picking up your cross and following me. Do these seem like contradictory statements? Dying and victory may seem like opposites, but I turned my own death into my greatest triumph, and left a pattern for you to follow. Not in the grand scale that I did, but the same principle applies in your own life. For he who seeks to keep his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake will gain eternal life. Have you experienced this? How a series of small ‘deaths’ and ‘resurrections’ transforms you into my likeness?

Have you ever examined your life and been demoralized to realize how far you have to go? I am aware of this as well but your morale is important to me. I do not willingly grieve or crush the hearts of men. So I deal with your life in stages and comfort you during this process. I told my disciples that I had more to tell them, but they could not bear it then. I promised that the Comforter would lead them into all truth, and He will do the same for you as you are able to bear it. I call you to rejoice and want it to be possible for you. I want you to understand the difference between the desirable state of  brokenness and the despair of being crushed. 

Do you think it is an interesting concept, becoming as little children to enter the Kingdom of God, since you were already a child once? This implies that you have lost something you once had to make you who you are now. Do you wonder what you lost and how you may recover it to enter the Kingdom? Children are transparent and authentic, not having had the time to develop a false self for a public image. Just as it is hard for a camel to go through the eye of a needle so it is hard for a rich man and someone conflicted about who they are, who they think they are, and who they want others to think they are to enter the Kingdom of God. 

You have my promise that if you are on trial for your life that I will give you the words that you need at the time; divine wisdom that your enemies will not be able to refute. With this comes the admonition not to prepare your remarks in advance. The purpose is that your prepared speech will interfere with the flow of my Spirit. Have you ever been called on to do this? Do you have the faith not to prepare your defense? Hopefully this is a rare situation, but the power of life or death is in your words whether you are on trial or not. My wisdom is available to you at all times. Are you willing to go with it rather than your own words?