Carrying your cross...

Chapter: Forty-eight 

When we think of the cross, the first thought that usually comes into the mind of a believer and follower of Jesus Christ is His being crucified upon it so that we would have the opportunity to accept His sacrifice for our sins and receive the gift of eternal life.  However, I would like to challenge you to consider the cross from a different perspective.  

We read in Luke 9:23, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me", but what does that Scripture really mean?  Many think that it means that in becoming a follower of Christ we are to accept the challenges and trials that will happen in this life as a result.  However, the purpose of the cross in a believer's life is meant to be much more, and must be much more if we are to truly allow God to have His way in our lives. Just as Christ died upon the Cross, we, also, have to die upon it. Luke 14:27-28 says, "And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost..." .

Let me quickly put in a disclaimer.  We are not expected to literally climb up on a cross of some type and die upon it as Christ did.  There are some who have misinterpreted this text or have been taught in error and they resort to such things as self flogging, having themselves nailed upon a cross and other such torturous methods that they mistakenly think will either grant them favor with God, draw them closer to Him or will do away with any sin they have in their lives.  This is not what Scripture means when it says we must deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Christ.

Unfortunately, many believers do not understand the true meaning of "carrying one's cross" as it has been downplayed by modern Christendom.  The modern way of viewing one's cross does have its earthly, temporary benefits as it requires little to no sacrifice on the part of the believer. He/she still lives for their own pleasure although their lives are often not as immoral as before their salvation and that is good enough for them. They still focus mainly on enjoying living in the world, and are satisfied that they have cleaned themselves up to some degree.

In addition, many pastors or preachers do not preach  "dying to self" and instead pacify believers by telling them that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands or sacrifices. Blessings and how God wants you to live a happy life is what is preached to those who sit in their pews.  They do not challenge Christ's followers but instead just teach a more moral way of living. And the downfall of this type of erroneous teaching is that it totally misses the point of the cross in a believer's life...that being the necessity of totally giving up their lives to God so that He may raise them to a newer, holier life.

  

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). Paul had written this to the Galatians who had become known for their backsliding, going back to their bad habits and old ways of living.  Paul was trying to impress upon them that becoming a believer and follower of Christ was much more than receiving salvation...it also involves giving up all of our rights and allowing Christ to live in and through us.

When Paul says "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live", he was referring to his fleshly, carnal nature being put to death.  When he says, "...but Christ lives in me" he is referring to exactly that...Christ now lived in him and had taken up residence. Luke 9:23 says, "Then he (Jesus) said to them all: 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.'" The man with a cross no longer gets to choose his destiny, no longer gets to make choices in his life, but finds that he has to forsake all the world has to offer so that he can follow Christ. But, we do not want to truly "carry our cross" because deep down we know the cost and are not willing to pay it.

Dietrich Bonhoffer said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”   He went on to say, " Self-denial is never just a series of isolated acts of mortification or asceticism. It is not suicide, for there is an element of self-will even in that. To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self denial can say is: "He leads the way, keep close to him.”

Stop and think about that for a minute.  When you became a believer and accepted Christ into your heart, you were to give up all rights to yourself and hand all your rights over to Christ. Hopefully this was properly explained to you beforehand, and  your acceptance of Christ and having the privilege of going to Heaven was not just sold to you as fire insurance or a way to receive wonderful blessings from God and an easier life while here on earth. When you accepted Christ you were to die, just as Christ died, but for a different reason.  You were to die to yourself, to your sinful nature. And now that you are dead and your sinful flesh nature has been crucified, you are a new person...and Christ lives in you. You now have the opportunity to live out the fullness of what God has for you, and that involves being changed on the inside, so that you become more like Christ. But, this is where the difficulty arises.

As Christians, we might as well admit and come to terms with the fact that even though we are in right standing with  God, our flesh, our sin nature, continues to haunt us and it must be dealt with. Our flesh is our ego, our plans, our desires, our ideas, our frustrations, our pride, our self-centeredness, and any other trait of our old self that shows to us that sin and our own desires are still alive within us. When the Lord says kill the flesh, He means we are to put ourselves on the cross.  But this is where we do not want to go.  While we despise those things that we still find repugnant within ourselves, the idea of crucifying our flesh is something we fight. But what we do not realize is that by refusing to give up those things our flesh enjoys, and crucifying the plans and desires we have for our lives, we are missing out on really living and being used by God.  We are our own worst enemy in this regard.

Many of the those who wrote the books of the New Testament referred to themselves as bondservants or servants of God.  In James 1:1, the term bondservant comes from the word "dulos" which means, "a slave; one devoted to another to the disregard of one's own interests." This is the attitude we must have toward our own lives and how we are to live when we follow God.  His interests are now paramount and ours are to be totally disregarded.
  

Galatians 6:14 says, "God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."  We say in our prayers and in our songs that we want only what God wants and that He can guide our lives, but in reality we resist; we hesitate when we hear we must totally give up our selves and are desperate to hang on to some part that we can still control. We want to continue to seek after our own interests and thus refuse to die on the cross. We can talk all we want about wanting to have a deeper walk with God, but we spend a lot of energy staying off that cross. Until you reach the place where you truly are desperate for God, are willing to give up your own interests in order to walk close with Him, you will always climb off the cross. Christians who truly want to obey God will have to deal with the cross at some point in their walk and become true bondservants.

God wants to give us life, but not a new and improved version of the old life. If we do choose to take up our cross, we have to count ourselves dead and be willing to readily accept whatever sacrifice  will be asked of us when we are living a consecrated, obedient life to God.  Are we willing to submit as it says in  Matthew 16:24-25: "Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it."  

How do we do this, give up our old life and carry our cross? After we repent, receive salvation and give up our sinful life, we must then go on and give up all rights to ourselves. We cannot make a deal with God in order to hold on to some of our old self, or our own plans/desires for our lives. We must be willing to do whatever God wants by becoming His bondservant.  If you decide to embrace that, you will find that Christ will raise you to a new, holier life.  Christ must have first place in your life and  you begin by taking up your cross and following Him. Remember that beyond your cross awaits life and being in the presence of God. God knows that only good can come as a result of our dying to self and obediently following Him, and the method He chooses is the cross for each of us.

Oswald Chambers said, "The inescapable spiritual need each of us has is the need to sign the death certificate of our own sin nature. I must take my emotional opinions and intellectual beliefs and be willing to turn them into a moral verdict against the nature of sin; that is, against any claim I have to my right to myself."   

 

Our carrying our cross has to be our choice.  God will not force it upon us. He knows it is the choice that we need to make, just as Jesus did in John 10:38 when He said, "No one take it (my life) from me, but I lay it down of my own accord." 

 Like us, Jesus had the opportunity to escape the cross but He chose not to. Taking up our cross and following Christ is a choice that must be made with forethought and determination. Taking up our cross implies that as believers there will be suffering as we endure the consequences of following Christ through obedience. 

It is often assumed that the believer's own cross will be accepted voluntarily. However, many have refused it.  Jesus said about believers, "He must...take up his cross daily and follow me."  In our everyday lives we must carry our cross so God can not only continue to slay the evil nature that continues to live within us in order to set us free from its power, but so He can also guide us in what He wants us to do with our lives for His Kingdom.