Notice that Jesus rebuked Peter in private, then He called the crowds and began to teach them. The supreme purpose of the cross was to win our salvation, to pay the price of our salvation and to conquer death. However, the cross is also an example. The life of Jesus is an example. Just as Jesus went the way of the cross to see God's purposes fulfilled, so we too must go the way of the cross if we want to see God's purposes fulfilled in our lives.
The root of sin is rebellion against God, of putting ourselves in the place of God, instead of giving Him His rightful place. When we turn to God we must deny ourselves, ie we put God first, we seek first the kingdom and His righteousness.
When we rebel against God we think we are gaining freedom, we think we are getting what we want, but nothing could be further from the truth. The paradox is that when we deny ourselves, when we lose our life, we actually gain it.
Making ourselves gods is based on a lie. Atheism, humanism, secularism, all ism's which put man at the centre are based on a lie. A moments thought should show that we are not gods. We had no say in whether or not we were born, we had no say in what sort of person we would be, we had no control over when we would be born. We did not create the universe. We have precious little control over when we will die, and we certainly cannot avoid death altogether. We rebel again and again against God being Lord, but it is actually the only thing that makes sense, and our lives only start to make sense when we acknowledge Jesus as Lord of all.
And in this life we must acknowledge Christ as Lord before men.
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