"Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. "For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it. Matthew 16:24-26 NAS

Here we are walking out this Christian walk daily and sometimes it can feel heavy. The Christian walk was never said to be easy. In fact a good evangelist will tell new believers to expect that life may become harder, but to get ready for a new life with hope in Jesus Christ. The very first response to following after Jesus is the surrender of self. It is dying to self and denying our fleshly desires. In the last devotionals we talked about the Apostle Peter coming to the point of surrender after being led by his pride and the flesh into failure.

Jesus says, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." Denying ourselves is an action on our part. It is an act of the will. Denying ourselves determines whether Jesus Christ is just our Saviour or if He is our Saviour and Lord. There is a difference for sure. He can be the Saviour of our lives without being the Lord of them. To some He is just the ticket to heaven. They may quote the verse, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast (Eph 2:8-9)."

And they are right, but are they surrendered to Him as the Lord of their lives. Is He their every breath? Is He their everything for everyday? Are they laying down their own desires for Him and His will? Are they denying themselves and picking up their cross for Him daily? There in lies the answer to whether Jesus is the Lord of our lives. We want our every breath to revolve around Him. We give Him permission and access to every area of our lives and hearts.

This is what it means to pickup our cross daily and deny ourselves. We must surrender our wills to His will. We need to surrender our fleshly desires to Him. Now we know and understand that it is not our nature anymore to sin. We have become new creatures, new species in Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:2 it says, "Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." It is as if we have gone from being self-willed arrogant cats to loving obedient dogs. We are no longer owned by sin and we no longer have to sin. Yes, we can actually say, "No!"

However we are still in these fleshly body's that wage war against our souls (1 Peter 2:11). Here is where picking up our cross comes in. You see, waging the war against our flesh and denying ourselves can feel like picking up a heavy crossbeam. When Christ says, "...pick up your cross" He knew exactly what that meant for us. Since He was a carpenter He lifted wood beams. He also knew how heavy the crossbeam was; after all He was the creator of all things. He knew He would carry a real crossbeam on His back after being beaten beyond recognition. He would make the greatest sacrifice ever to be made for all of mankind, His creation.

He would deny Himself all the way to the cross to accomplish the Fathers will of perfect atonement of sin. Accordingly the punishment that Christ was to receive was to the Romans the most painful way to be killed. It was a slow and painful death. After a man was sentenced to die by crucifixion, he would be subject to scourging. This would rip and tear the back of a man to shreds and weaken him to the point of death. Then He would carry the crossbeam section of the cross to the location of where the crucifixion would take place.

For Christ they say that was about a 1/3 of a mile distance to 3000 feet. The entire cross may have weighed a total of 300 pounds. The crossbeam itself weighed between 75 and 120 pounds. To pick up your cross and carry it to the place you were to die was to humiliate you further and weaken you, to bring you closer to your end. Christ the King of the world chose to carry His cross until He in His beaten body of flesh could carry it no more. He made the biggest sacrifice ever to be made.

We must consider the cost He paid to understand the importance of denying ourselves and coming to the point of surrender. If for no other reason we pick up our cross, it would be because He is worthy of it and deserves all of us. In Matthew 10:38 it says, "And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.” In regards to carrying the cross Barnes' Notes says, “To carry it was burdensome, was disgraceful, was trying to the feelings, was an addition to the punishment. So "to carry the cross" is a figurative expression, denoting that we must endure whatever is burdensome, or is trying, or is considered disgraceful, in following Christ. It consists simply in doing our duty, let the people of the world think of it or speak of it as they may (1).”

Today consider the cost our Lord paid to give us eternal life. He carried His cross for our sin. He took our disgrace upon Himself. Are you picking up your cross and denying yourself? Is your Christian walk, just enough to know you are saved? This walk in Christ, this carrying of our cross is a deep intimate relationship with the Creator of the universe Himself. We die daily and deny ourselves daily in this Christian walk we have.

Remember we have the promise that when we are heavy-laden He will give us rest (Mark 15:21). When the cross we carry is too much to bear, He comes along side and carries the burden for us. Just as the picture of Simon of Cyrene being called into service to come along side and carry the cross for the beaten Christ. When we feel beaten and scourged by this world we can come to Jesus to be sustained and strengthened. I pray you have a strengthened week in His powerful name.

In His Love,
Adam