Take Up Your Cross: Denying Ourselves

Welcome!

Welcome to the blog! I hope this post finds everyone well.

If we’ve been around the church much or have read much of the gospels, most of us have heard the phrase, “Take up your cross.”

But, what does this phrase mean and what does it look like for us to live it out?

“Take Up Your Cross”

In Mark 8, Jesus responds to Peter for rebuking him after he stated that he must suffer and die, saying: “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel will save it. For what benefit is it for a person to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his life? What can a person give in exchange for his life?”

Taking up our cross involves dying to ourselves and our desires. Just as the cross meant death in Jesus’ time, his calling to take up our cross signifies death. Dying to ourselves should result in complete surrender to God.

True surrender should lead to a willingness to die for Christ and our faith.

R.C. Sproul points out that the apostles knew if their rabbi was going to suffer, they had to suffer as well. Following a rabbi meant following his way of life. If your rabbi was persecuted, you would be persecuted as well.

Surrendering All

C.S. Lewis said the following in Mere Christianity: “…Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track, and getting ready to start life over from the ground floor – this movement full speed astern – is what Christians call repentance…It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death.”

There’s sometimes a feeling that God’s gift of grace is free or even ‘cheap.’

God’s grace is free in that we cannot earn it with our strength, but only through faith in Jesus. It’s free in that we don’t have to pay anything or be extra holy to be saved.

But, following God will ultimately cost each of us our lives.

The invitation to follow God may be free, but it will require us to surrender everything to Him. It requires us to deny ourselves of the things we hold as important such as our time, social media, and comfort.  God wants to be a part of our entire lives and ultimately everything we do.

Following Jesus requires hard grueling work.

Satan’s Attack

Satan will do whatever he can to ruin our lives. He will use even the smallest things to distract us from living the lives God has in store for us. These distractions require all of our efforts to overcome and leave behind us.

Following Jesus requires us to do war with Satan and his lies.

Thankfully, God promises to be with us the whole way.

Romans 8 37-39 says: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Conclusion

God doesn’t call us to mediocre lives. He calls us to be radically different from the rest of the world. We are called to take up our cross, surrender our desires and stubborn ways to Christ, and follow him with all that we have. This isn’t God’s suggestion, it’s His command!

In our modern world countless things are fighting for our attention and holding us back. We are to rid ourselves of these things so we can truly follow Jesus.

I want to leave you with these words from C.S Lewis: “…if we somehow share the humility and suffering of Christ we shall also share in His conquest of death and find new life after we have died and in it become perfect…”

Until next time…

“The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you.”