Jesus bids us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him (Luke 9:23 NKJV), adding: “And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:27 NKJV). This is a heavy command. In bearing His cross, Jesus was walking to His death, and He is asking us to do the same, saying, “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Luke 9:24 NKJV). It is a high calling to follow Jesus. Only in Him do we find life and the truest expression of that life is gained through faith and obedience.
How many of us call ourselves followers of Christ without adhering to or even considering the ways of Him whom we profess to follow? Jesus led us in all that He commanded us. There is not one thing that He asks of us that He did not first do. And yet, we approach His requests as unreasonable or too great. The truth is that His requests are too great without His help, which is why we have been given a helper in Holy Spirit. At the core of our inability to follow Him is not truly a lack of ability but rather an aching desire to follow after the ways of our flesh and an indifference to His word. In our natural, unrefined states, we live to satisfy the flesh, and in doing so, we are slaves to it. With Christ, we are empowered to rise above the flesh and live more abundantly in His freedom. We do this by denying ourselves and taking up our crosses daily. It’s a choice we must make every day to be like our Jesus and truly be followers of this man we profess, who is the very Word of God. It isn’t easy to die to our flesh and choose His higher ways, but He never said it would be. His invitation to be His disciples is an invitation to walk out our own death daily and to choose life in Him.
Jesus is my greatest desire, and I know to be worthy of Him, I must bear my cross and follow Him (Matthew 10:38 NKJV). I often find myself lamenting the hard moments in life and praying that they would be taken from me. Jesus Himself prayed such a prayer, but knowing that for the sake of love His crucifixion was necessary, He adjusted His prayer towards obedience to death on the cross. And so, for the sake of love, I’m choosing to embrace my cross. My confession is that Jesus is worth it. Let my actions be true to my words, and let my words be true to my heart. He is worth it all. Today, I’m choosing, not to just bear the cross, but to embrace it. I know that as I do so, I’m drawing nearer to Him, My Desire and My Love.
