Take Up Your Cross and Follow Jesus

²⁴ Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ²⁵ For whoever would save his life^[a] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. ²⁶ For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

When you study and read around history, you will notice that the understanding of carrying the cross in the day of Jesus is different to modern times.

When a person carried a cross in the days of Jesus, no one thought of it as an annoyance or a nuisance.

To a person in the first century, the cross meant one thing and one thing only: death by crucifixion.

To carry a cross was to face the most painful and humiliating means of death human beings could.

In present day, Christians view the cross as a beloved symbol of atonement, forgiveness, grace, and love.

However, when you look at what Jesus went through on that day, in Jesus’ day the cross represented a torturous death.

The Romans forced convicted criminals to carry their own crosses to the place of crucifixion

see John 19:17 where it reads;

and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.

Bearing a cross meant one was about to die, and that one would face ridicule and disgrace along the way.

Therefore, Jesus’ command to “take up your cross and follow Me” is a call to deny flesh and self-sacrifice.

One must be willing to die in order to follow Jesus. Dying to self is an absolute surrender to God.

Hence why it is paramount in this day and age to tell people that following Jesus is not always peaches and cream.

It is of utmost importance that people are aware that it is not always easy to let go of your will for His will.

There will be times when you feel like you will break.

I once told someone its so easy to sing songs like refiners fire refine me or break me Lord,

until you actually need to go through the process of being broken and refined.

Those are the moments when you really know whether you truly are for Christ’s agenda.

What happens in those moments when His ways mean letting go of that very thing you cherish so much?

How you deal with those moments matter. Trust me that kind of pain is not for the faint of heart.

Imagine Jesus carrying His cross on His back, going up to the Place of the Skull.

Each step Jesus took was Him overcoming the temptation of the devil.

Each step He took; in great pain and agony, was a step closer to our salvation.

Now, imagine us carrying our cross and daily teaching our hearts to not love what we used to love.

Teaching our hearts to let go of the rebellion and embrace obedience.

Because you can’t love obedience and rebellion at the same time.

I want to use Matt 6:24 for reference to drive the point home.