|
Take Up Your Cross!
“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’”
– Matthew 16:24
Jesus’ words were unmistakable—and brutal—to his disciples. They knew what crosses were. No, they weren’t silver charms worn on necklaces. They weren’t the designs in tattoo parlors. The cross was an instrument of execution, one of the most violent and horrible ever invented by evil men. I can imagine the disciples gasping when Jesus uttered those words in Matthew 16:24. If we fully comprehend them, we will gasp, too.
But before we get to the cross, let’s understand some things. Jesus begins this statement with a tiny but important word: if. He doesn’t take it for granted that you and I will be willing to follow him along his path of radical obedience to the Father. Jesus is no bully. He doesn’t try to get us to pack our bags for a guilt trip. No, he simply offers that path with all its hardships and joys, and says, “If you want the greatest adventure life has to offer, here’s what the ticket will cost you.”
Quite frankly, the vast majority of Christians look at the brochure and say, “No thanks. The price is too high. I’ll settle for something else.” Only a few are willing to say, “Yes, Jesus. I want to go wherever you go.” Fewer still stay on board for the whole journey. Jesus makes the offer, and he leads each of us in deciding what we want to do. The question isn’t, “Do you do what you want to do?” but “Do you do what he wants you to do?” In this lies the opportunity to die.
He makes the price very clear. There are three parts. First, “deny yourself.” Jesus is talking here about our innate selfishness:
- our selfish ambitions to rise above other people
- our selfish behaviors to get what we want when we want it
- our selfish attitudes of caring only for our own interests
- our selfish desires to put our needs first above anyone else
What does it mean to “deny” our selfish interests? Think of your selfishness as a hungry wolf that consumes anything and everything it can eat. To deny it means: don’t feed it. Identify the sources of food for your selfishness, and stay away from those things!
- Deny reading books or magazines that stimulate those thoughts.
- Deny daydreaming about having more things or controlling people.
- Deny watching movies or television shows that feed those impulses.
- Deny listening to music that makes selfishness seem normal.
- Deny hanging out with people who drag you down and offer you selfish meat.
- Deny talking about people or things or yourself in ways that put people down.
- Deny gossiping, criticizing, cursing, lying, stealing, acting selfishly in any way, shape, or form.
“So, if I deny myself those things,” you may ask, “what’s left? Those things are my whole life!” For some of us, starving our selfishness will be a shock to our systems! That’s all we’ve ever known! But after the shock wears off, we find there’s plenty of good stuff to fill the hole in our time and affections.
Denying yourself means saying “No!” to selfishness. The next part of Jesus’ statement is saying, “Yes!” to him: “Take up your cross.” Imagine being one of Jesus’ disciples and hearing those words. As you walked down the roads near towns, you occasionally passed dying men hanging on crosses. They were murderers and traitors. The cross was the most extreme form of punishment in the Roman Empire, reserved only for the worst criminals. Jesus was saying, “Take up your cross.” It must have seemed insane to them! I’m sure they were confused.
A few months later, the disciples understood what Jesus meant. At that time, the perfect Son of God, the sinless Messiah, willingly “endured the cross, scorning its shame” (Hebrews 12:2) in obedience to the Father. He prayed so hard that blood vessels in his forehead burst from the strain. Drops of blood fell on the ground where he agonized with his Father about dying such a horrible death. But his commitment to obey the Father was greater than his desire for comfort and approval. So he went to the cross.
That’s what it means for you and me, too: to obey God no matter what he asks us to do and no matter how much we don’t want to do it. On a daily basis, we are to say “Yes!” to God by:
- Valuing what God says is important, and blowing off the things that aren’t.
- Being loyal to the Father at all costs because he is worthy of our love.
- Obeying him wherever, whenever, and however he leads.
- Finding our ultimate reward in knowing our God is honored in our obedience.
OK, but what does “taking up our crosses” really look like?
I believe we encounter this decision on two distinct levels. On one level, each of us faces a few dozen major decisions in our lives which are forks in the road: our choice of friends; which college to attend; what career to pursue; who to marry; how far to go in a significant relationship; what habits we will develop in high school, college, and in early years of adulthood; how to relate to someone who has hurt us deeply; whether we will fill our minds with trash or with healthy stuff; and other, much bigger decisions.
But on a different level, we make hundreds of choices each day and thousands each week that either say, “Yes” or “No” to God. We may not realize that’s what we are doing, but it is. We have choices: to set the alarm to get up a few minutes early to pray and read the Bible, or to get a little more sleep; to go to bed a few minutes early so we aren’t wasted early in the morning when we know we should get up and spend time with God; to rob someone’s reputation by gossiping about them or to keep quiet; to say something encouraging to someone instead of being sarcastic; to take time to listen to a boring person; to refuse to defend ourselves or talk about our success; to grab a sinful thought and replace it with truth from God’s word; to overlook an unkind remark; or to give and serve when it would be easier to stay in our own selfish world.
In all this, Jesus is our example. He isn’t asking us to do anything he hasn’t already done to a far higher degree than we will ever do. Paul encouraged us to understand this in his letter to the Philippians. He wrote:
“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:5-8).
So “taking up our crosses” means to value God above all else, to serve instead of demand our rights, and to be humble instead of proud—to the point of death.
The passionate motive that drove Jesus to the cross was us. Why us? Because our salvation ultimately brings glory to the Father.
“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).
Jesus says in John 8:50: “I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge.” So there you have it—Jesus’ motive for death. He went to the cross so that we would be saved and thus glorify the Father. Likewise, our motive for daily dying to ourselves should be to glorify God.
If we choose to deny ourselves and take up our crosses as Christ did in obedience to God, we too will bring glory to God and experience the presence of God in our lives. We will see his hand at work in us and through us. Broken hearts will be mended. People who have lost their way will find direction and meaning. Prodigals will return home. He will heal the hurts in our lives and give us hope and purpose. We will sense the love and power of God in a way we never thought possible. The Scriptures are full of these promises. We can’t miss them!
This article was taken from A Call to Die by David Nasser. To hear David talk about his book click here.
|
