24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life”
Matthew 16:24-26?
Let me say two things about what Jesus said above: “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me” (Verse 27). Almost always in the New testament the word “deny” almost always has overtones of association or connection to a person. Denial, then, in the New Testament is the intentional disassociation from a relationship with a particular person.
So when Jesus says that the mark of a Christian, the characteristic of one who follows Him, is self-denial, Jesus is commanding our intentional disowning of ourself, or stepping away from relationship with the ourself as primary. Jesus is not making a statement about whether the self is bad, but about who we are most closely associated with. Who is our primary allegiance to — Him, or ourselves?
We must step away from our sinful selves because we have allowed ourselves to step away from Christ. So what is necessary for our life is to align ourselves with Jesus Christ, not with our view of life. And not with an inflated view of who we are!
The second thing I wish to say relates to Jesus’ comment that we must pick up our cross and follow Him! Jesus made this statement about taking up our cross before He was crucified. Although the metaphor would certainly gain a fuller meaning after his death, it must have meant something to His listeners, especially His disciples, beforehand as well.
Crucifixion was reserved specifically for offenders who had rebelled against authority. To “take up one’s cross” referred to the practice of forcing a condemned person to carry the cross beam to his execution site. This showed that although he had rebelled against authority, the condemned person was now so completely conquered that his last act in life would be to carry the instrument of his demise to the place of his death. It was a show of complete and utter submission.
So Jesus’ call to bear one’s cross as part of following Jesus, then, is a call to be as submitted to Christ as the condemned criminal was to his death.
Therefore, when Jesus calls for self-denial and cross-bearing, He’s claiming authority, complete authority in our lives.
Following Jesus Christ in our lives, then, means disowning the self and giving allegiance to Him instead. And it means giving Him allegiance down to the very depths of our being.
So ask the Lord, then, in your prayer today for the grace, His grace, to disown who you have become, a sinner, and to give your life completely to Him every day. You and I may have one, and only one, allegiance, and that must be an allegiance to Jesus Christ.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy win me a sinner.
From the Bible:
“Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul” 1 Peter 2:11.
“Choose rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin” Hebrews 11:25.
“Paul answered, ‘What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus’” Acts 21:14.
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