“The one who loves his life destroys it, and the one who hates his life in this world guards it for eternal life. If anyone wants to serve me, he must follow me, and where I am, my servant will be too. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.” John 12:25-26 NET https://bible.com/bible/107/jhn.12.26.NET

We are born into this world with sin in our DNA. It is why infants and toddlers rebel against loving parents. It is why we have wars, murders, and every kind of evil. We cannot please God in our flesh apart from being born again by the Spirit, Who then empowers us to obey His Word and do His will in the world. When we are genuinely born again, we experience the war within our bodies between the ways of God and the ways of our sinful nature. The battle is between pleasing ourselves and pleasing God. God warns us that the person who lives to please himself, to ensure his happiness and gratification, is the man on the road to destruction, for he does not do the will of God or honor Him in the world. The person who studies the Word of God to do the will of God as Jesus did is the person who denies himself as Jesus did, dies to self as Jesus did, and does whatever Jesus commands him and is thereby honored by God as Jesus is exalted as King of kings and Lord of lords. This person seeks Jesus through the Word, prayer, and the church to follow Jesus where He is working in the world at seeking and saving the lost, for this is His will for us that none should perish but everyone to be saved, so He commands His people to go and make disciples. The Great Commission is the mission of every Christian, but only those who deny themselves, take up their cross, will follow Jesus to the humility of identifying with Him and for Him so that all people might come to believe in Him. As Jesus suffered publicly the shame and humility of dying naked for our sins, so too the born again must suffer the scorn and ridicule of men publicly for identifying with Him unashamedly as their Lord and Savior so that some might be saved.