“Anyone who comes to me but doesn’t love me more than their father and mother, their wife and children, their brothers and sisters, and even their own life can’t be my disciple.
In fact, I consider everything to be worthless compared with knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Knowing him is worth much more than anything else. Because of him I’ve lost everything, but I look at it all as garbage so that I can know Christ better.
But I’m not going to try to save my own life. My only goal is to finish the race and complete the work that the Lord Jesus has given me, to tell others the good news about God’s grace.
They won the victory over him by the blood of the Lamb and by speaking the truth about Jesus to others. They didn’t love their lives so much that they were afraid to die.