“Jesus turned and told Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me because you’re not thinking about God’s concerns but human concerns.” Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it. For what will it benefit someone if he gains the whole world yet loses his life? Or what will anyone give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will reward each according to what he has done.” Matthew 16:23-27 CSB https://bible.com/bible/1713/mat.16.23-27.CSB

God has an agenda. He commands us to be on board with His plans if we are His disciples and seek His pleasure. He tells us to pray for His kingdom to come and His will to be done upon earth as in heaven. This is accomplished by going into the world and making disciples, which is the teaching of everyone to obey everything Jesus has commanded, even as we live in obedience to those commands ourselves. We must be on our own if we are not on God’s agenda. What is our agenda? Selfish gain and rule. What is the cost of such living? Losing our life eternally with God and those we love in His heaven. To place God’s agenda above our own, we must die to ourselves. Like Jesus, Who came to earth not to do His will but the will of Him Who sent Him, so too we must take up our cross of self-denial and engage the will of God, which is the accomplishment of the work of God as defined so clearly in the word of God. Everyone will be held accountable for responding to God’s command to repent and follow Him. The faithful servant’s reward will be great, but those who hindered that work by failing to embrace it will be most unwelcome in God’s eternal home.