Take Up Your Cross

Take up your cross and follow me is not one of the more comfortable invitations given by Jesus to us. In fact there is no statement more antithetical to the message of our culture! To follow Jesus is to deny self; those personal dreams, comforts, desires and the like for the sake of others. To follow Jesus is to be separate from the world and for which it will hate you. To follow Jesus means to go to the place of execution and to surrender all that you are and all that you have to all that He is. Perhaps you think, “I don't really want to be a consecrated, committed, holy, self-denying, cross-bearing Christian. I'm content to be a barely squeezing into heaven by the skin of my teeth Christian.” But if we are unwilling to be separate from the world, unwilling to deny our own pleasures and crucify the flesh, unwilling to be persecuted for the name of Jesus, we cannot be His disciples. Jesus says, “…whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”