Yet that is exactly what Jesus calls "normal." Normal is "denying yourself" and "taking up your cross daily." As Don Carson (TEDS) writes so profoundly in his book, HOW LONG O LORD?, "taking up your cross..."
1) It does not mean to put up with some relatively minor irritant. Crucifixion was a form of execution reserved for the most despised and evil of criminals. “To take up one’s cross” was to go to the place of shameful, painful execution
2) The alternative to doing this is to “forfeit one’s soul,” to gain the world’s approval and Jesus’ disapproval. To lose your life is to discover what one has denied before: they belong to God by creation, they can never find themselves, never be fulfilled, never realize their potential unless they abandon self-interest and abandon themselves to God
3) Jesus casts this confrontation in terms of Christian witness. Ashamed of Jesus now, He will be ashamed of you at the end of this age.
Paul himself suggests to the Philippian believers that to suffer because you follow Christ is a privilege which is granted (Phil 1:29-30). Carson adds...
There is parental and pastoral implication to all this. Sometimes we want to protect our children or our flock from too many things…from the caustic scorn of peers…I look at my children, and I wish for them enough opposition to make them strong, enough insults to make them choose, enough hard decisions to make them see that following Jesus brings with it a cost—a cost eminently worth it, but still a cost. A church that is merely comfortable, that never evangelizes, never encourages its people to stand on the front line, will never be strong, never be grateful, never be able to sort out profoundly Christian priorities. (p. 87)
Take time to think about your living these days. For yourself? Or for the One who gave His life away resulted in many being restored to God? People far from God are drawn to Him, again, when Jesus' followers live like Jesus (cf. 1 John 2:3-5).
