Take up Your Cross

No matter how many times a person picks up the Bible there is always more to learn and to study. This hit home with me again the other day during my daily reading when I came across this verse:

²³ And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.¹

I have read this verse countless times, but the last time I read it I was struck by the word daily. Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve read the word, it’s not like I never noticed it, but this time it stuck with me.

Daily. Taking up our cross is not meant to be a one time thing, we are to pick it up every single day. I think sometimes we (or maybe it’s just me) read this verse and we think taking up our cross just means to turn from our old ways, accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and follow him. Yes, this is part of it, but it is really only the beginning.

In the second installment of the “Counting the Cost” series we are going to take a look at this concept from Luke 9:23.

Counting the Cost

Before Jesus told us that we must take up our crosses and follow him he said we must deny ourselves. What exactly does this mean? It means we must put Jesus before our hopes and our desires, before our goals and our dreams. We are to die to ourselves and live for God.

We are to do this daily. Every day we must remember that God comes before all else. Every day we should pray, “not my will be done, but yours be done.”² People tend to boast about their possessions or their accomplishments, but our only boast should be in the Lord.³

It is not about what we have done, but what Christ has done for us, and what he has done inside of us. Denying ourselves, in and of itself, is not easy in a world where everybody is in competition with each other. But Jesus wasn’t done there.

After we deny ourselves Jesus tells us to take up our crosses. To better understand this saying I think we need to remember what the Jewish people who heard these words would have thought about taking up a cross. To the Jewish people it meant ridicule, it meant torture, it meant death. It meant public shame and disgrace.

Even though they didn’t understand at that time that Jesus would be literally taking up his cross in the near future, they knew the cross was a symbol and instrument of pain, torture, death, and embarrassment.

Jesus knew the Jewish people would relate all of this to what he said, but he was saying it doesn’t matter. If you want to follow him you must be willing to endure whatever is thrown your way because of his name. You must not deny him, you must deny yourself. If the world hates you because you believe in Jesus, remember the world hated him first.⁴

Conclusion

When we decide to turn our lives over to Christ we can expect that it won’t always be an easy road. Jesus told us this several times, and he was alluding to it here as well. Jesus was rejected in his time, and oftentimes we are rejected for being followers of Jesus.

People don’t care if you are a Christian as long as you keep it to yourself. It is when you start trying to spread the Gospel that some people get “offended.” This can often open us up to ridicule, laughter, and anger, but it should never leave us feeling embarrassed. We just need to take up our crosses again, deny ourselves, and move on, spreading the Word as we go. Every single day.

Jesus literally picked up his cross once, but when you think about it, he lived his whole life knowing he was headed to the cross. In effect, he carried the weight of that cross every day of his life and he asks that we do the same metaphorically.

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1. Luke 9:23 ESV ↩︎
2. Luke 22:42 ↩︎
3. See 1 Corinthian 1:31 ↩︎
4. See John 15:18 ↩︎