Take Up Our Cross

Take Up Our Cross

“Then He said to them all, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.’” Luke 9:23. This is actually a very simple message, but it requires our whole life. It is when our life is required that it becomes complicated. Then all the defenses rise up from the flesh, wanting to spare ourselves. Our self-righteousness and self-will actively resist humbling ourselves. However, Jesus clearly goes on to say: “Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.” This is our only salvation. That is to lose our own life here in this world and enter into the life of God, where we follow the promptings from the Head, Jesus Christ. Then we find that we encounter our own flesh in the many different situations of life, and we realize that, in truth, the only solution is to humble ourselves and bow under the mighty hand of God, and truly deny ourselves and take up our cross.

Paul writes in 1 Cor. 1:18, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” We truly experience this when we understand Jesus’ words about taking up our cross daily. By bowing under the mighty hand of God and taking up our cross, we experience that we receive strength. It is the same power that Paul speaks of in Phil. 3:10, where he talks about the power of Jesus’ resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings, and being conformed to His death. Paul understood that in order for him to partake in the life of Christ, he also had to partake in His death. It is, after all, a result of denying myself and taking up my cross. To a certain extent, anyone can deny themselves in their own strength, but taking up my cross and partaking in the cleansing in Jesus’ blood requires power from the Holy Spirit. Then my self-life and self-will must perish. This way goes through humility. We cannot manage this as human beings without humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God, asking God to take control of our lives, and being obedient to what God works in us.

I imagine that the disciples who had walked together with Jesus were quite astonished when He first began to tell them that He would be killed and rise on the third day, before going on to say that if they were to follow Him, they had to take up their own cross daily. They had seen His life, how He served His disciples and the people He met along the way, where He was the first to work and give His life, where He humbled Himself in His dealings with others and showed only goodness and care for everyone He met. They had also felt the power and purity that radiated from Him. So they understood, to a certain extent, something of Jesus’ life and His glory. However, the fact that the way to this life goes through humbling yourself and taking up your cross was probably difficult to understand. Just after Jesus had said this, the disciples began to argue among themselves about which of them was the greatest. In other words, completely contrary to what Jesus had just tried to teach them. But that’s how we are as human beings. When it comes to the fault lying with me, and that I am the one who must take up my cross, then all the defenses of the flesh rise up, and I don’t really want to see myself. But just think what a glory it is then to have the acknowledgment that Paul had in Romans 7. It is in me . . . it is in my flesh, where nothing good dwells. And there I find that law—that even for me, the one who wills to do good, evil lies close at hand. May we all hold on to this acknowledgment through the many circumstances of life.