What is Christian?

After Jesus had told His disciples that He was going to die Peter tried to persuade Him that this didn't need to happen. Jesus then said to Peter, 'Get behind Me Satan. You don't value the things of God, but the things of man.' Jesus then went on to say that in order to be one of His disciples a person needs to 'pick up their cross and follow Him.' and, 'Whoever will save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Him will save it.' Wow!!! This is hard to digest with all the promptings of the prosperity movement. So what does it mean to pick up your cross?
I think it means that we need to place God's plans ahead of our own. We need to live for Him, and not for ourselves. After all, His ways aren't always our ways. We need to keep our finger on His pulse by continually asking Him where He wants to take us. Then we need to obey, even if it goes against our desires (and I don't think that picking up one's cross is usually desirable).
God asked me one Sunday if I would give Him the reigns of control over the service (I was speaking that day). I believe that He has given us the choice to either touch the nations with His power and glory, or to place ourselves as the godlike figure over our destinies. The problem with following our own voice is that we automatically search after self preservation (just like Peter was doing with Jesus, when Peter was under the influence of Satan). But Jesus is asking us to follow His lead by dying to ourselves so that we can achieve greater glory in Him, and by His ways.
He is showing me that it is sooooo important to obey Him in all things, even if I don't understand His logic. After all, the concept of 'faith' sometimes defies logic. And to walk out our faith we need to rely on Him, not our own fallible and limited abilities.