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Jesus must die, and if we are to be like him we must be willing to die too.
Read Matthew 16:13-28 and notice that people had various ideas about who Jesus really was, though they agreed that he was a prophet and somebody noteworthy. We tend to see what we are looking for so we have to ask ourselves, "What (or who) are we looking for?"
To answer as Peter did we must hear the truth from the Father himself; it must be revealed. Nobody is going to understand Jesus by mental agility and prowess but only as a gift from above. And it's on this bedrock of revelation that Jesus says he will build his church.
But if Peter felt proud to have received such a revelation, he was soon brought bumping back to the ground by hearing himself called a stumbling block placed in the way by the evil one.
Can we see ourselves in and through these verses? We should! Are we going to have the concerns of the Almighty Father in mind? Or will we be fully absorbed by our own concerns? Will we want to save our life but lose it? Or will we lose our life for Jesus? This is not necessarily about physical death. We all face that anyway. This is truly about giving up what we hold dear, picking up our cross and following Jesus.
There's a combination here of revelation and obedience. We need both. Jesus offers us both.
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