“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his
life for My sake will save it.”
Luke 9:23-24
Jesus says
that if we desire to come after Him we must deny ourselves and take up our cross
daily. A cross is a place of death and dying
is not easy. By nature, we have God-given
instinct to survive and preserve our lives.
However, in Christ, true life is found through a process of dying; not a
physical death, but through denial of self.
This means that we place our lives completely in His hands, surrendering
our hearts and lives fully to His will and purpose.
Am I
willing to give up my desires to follow God’s desires for my life? Am I willing to surrender my plan to embrace
God’s plan? Am I willing to go wherever
God calls me? When everything in me
wants to cut and run, am I willing to humble myself and stay where God has
called me to stay?
When we surrender
our lives to the Lord there may be times we have to make a decision to be
faithful to Him in a difficult situation.
That difficult situation may not appear to have an immediate
resolution. We can fight against it if we
like, but God may be forming His character in our lives. He may have us where we are for a
purpose. He will move us when He’s
ready.
There was
nothing easy about Jesus walking the road to Calvary. But after he had offered up his life, he
experienced Resurrection. Isaiah 53 (NIV) reads, “After the suffering of his
soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied...” In a similar way, when we deny ourselves, we will
experience resurrection life in Christ.
God may
ask us to give things up, but it is never without reward. In Matthew 19 Peter said to Jesus, “…we have left all and followed You. Therefore what
shall we have?” Jesus
does not rebuke him for his question and I like that. He promises Peter that he will sit on one of the
12 thrones in Jesus’ glory, with the other disciples. And then he says,
“And
everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall
receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.” (vs. 29)
Mark, in
Chapter 10, expands upon these words from Jesus:
“Assuredly,
I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or
father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the
gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses
and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with
persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life.” (vs. 29-30)
To truly
follow Jesus, with all of our hearts, may involve great sacrifice. Through it all, God blesses us and enriches
our lives in many ways. There is nothing
wrong with wanting to be blessed or seeking reward. But what kind of reward are we seeking? Are we seeking eternal reward? Are we storing up for ourselves treasures in
heaven or selfishly seeking more treasure on this earth?
Please don’t
get me wrong, I’m not against prosperity or blessing. I believe God delights in giving good gifts
to His children. Nevertheless, I think
sometimes we need to look at our motives for following the Lord. What is the real reward we are seeking? Where does our true treasure lie? If everything were taken from us, would we
still follow Him? If every dream we
dreamed with the Lord died, would we still love Him? If God called us to lay our Isaac on the
altar and surrender it to Him, would we still walk in the obedience of faith?
I believe
the greatest reward is Christ Himself, to know Him and be close to Him. Paul prayed, “… that I
may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His
sufferings...” (Philippians 3:10) The greatest treasure is His presence. What if this current pathway, which sometimes
involves pain, hardship, persecution and/or suffering is storing up for us treasure
and glory in heaven that far outweighs any difficulty on this earth?
“For our light affliction, which is but for a
moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and
eternal
weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the
things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are
temporary,
but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
II Corinthians 4:17-18
