In a way God must seduce each and every one of us.  Who in their right mind would want to crawl up on the cross in order to suffer with the Lord?  But in order for us to share in the glory of the resurrection, we must also share in the cross of the Lord.
    In his letter to the Romans, Paul urges us not to be seduced by the times in which we live.  Instead, he wants us to discern the will of God for our lives, so that we can do what is good, pleasing, and perfect.
    In Matthew's the gospel we see how easily Peter is seduced by worldly thinking.  In last week's gospel he was "the rock" upon which Christ was going to build the Church.  This week Peter is "Satan," becoming an obstacle to the Lord's mission.  Jesus makes it clear; to follow the Christ is to carry the cross. 
    There are still some people who think that they can have it all.  They honestly believe that if they make enough money, have enough power, know enough people, they can get through this life without having to suffer.  No one comes into this life without experiencing its pain and no one leaves this life without being touched by its pain.  To be a living person is to know suffering.  We cannot save our lives by running from human suffering.  But we do have a great hero in our suffering.  The Lord Jesus showed us that we can do wonderful things to alleviate the sufferings of others.  He further taught us that we can bring our suffering to his cross in order to make our suffering redemptive.  Any suffering that is offered up to God in Christ for the salvation of the world is never wasted suffering.  It becomes holy, it becomes redemptive.  By losing our lives in this way, we find them.  Our challenge is to overcome our fear of suffering in order take up our cross and follow Jesus into glory.