Taking Up Your Cross...DAILY. Yipes!

And He said to them all, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” Luke 9:23

I know we have all heard this verse zillions of times, but God has shown me some stuff about it and in this Note I would like to especially emphasize the importance of making a “daily” commitment to Christ.

Being a Christian is more than just walking down the aisle when you’re in second grade, repeating a prayer, and getting baptized. It is a daily commitment, where you "re-sign" up every single morning. I think a lot of us don’t truly understand what Jesus was calling us to do, because it’s a big deal and our lives should look a whole lot different. (Now let me say up front that salvation is found by grace through faith alone, and when I say re-sign up, I don’t mean your salvation “expires” every night so you have to renew it every morning; I’m saying that we must realize every single day the importance of following Christ.) Jonathan Edwards made 70 resolutions (they’re really good; read them here http://www.reformed.org/documents/Edwards/index.html?mainframe=/documents/Edwards/j_edwards_resolutions.html) and one of my favorites is:
“Resolved, frequently to renew the dedication of myself to God, which was made at my baptism; which I solemnly renewed, when I was received into the communion of the church; and which I have solemnly re-made this twelfth day of January, 1722.” This is what we should be doing!!!

Galatians 2:20 says “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” CRUCIFIED!? That’s certainly not a weak way of putting it. We Americans don’t fully understand this precious concept of crucifixion since it doesn’t really happen all the time, but the crucifixion was totally humiliating, painful beyond words, and you looked a whole lot different by the time it was over.

Do you understand, friends, that we must give up the world to follow Christ? You cannot serve both God and man. You cannot live in both light and darkness. Famous poet Emily Dickinson understood the kind of commitment it takes when you sign up to follow after Christ, but unfortunately she could not give up the world.

She said this when she was FIFTEEN years old to a friend after a Christian revival came to her hometown: “The world allured me and in an unguarded moment I listened to her siren voice. From that moment I seemed to lose interest in heavenly things. Friends reasoned with me and told me of the danger I was in. I felt my danger and was alarmed, but I had rambled too far to return and ever since my heart has been growing harder.” The world beckoned, and she liked it. Later in that letter, she said “I do not feel I could give up all for Christ, were I called to die.” So she didn’t. She was unwilling to surrender.

Surrendering all to Christ is a big deal. The song that made me want to learn sign language was “I Surrender All”, because as it was being interpreted, I almost cried upon seeing the powerful meaning of the words. “Surrender” in ASL is putting your hands up, like when the police come up to you and they’re like “HANDS UP!” so you throw down your loot and you’re like “Ahhh I surrender!” (You can see the sign at http://www.signingsavvy.com/search.php?search=surrender&submitSearch.x=0&submitSearch.y=0) Then “all” (in this context, at least) is motioning head-to-toe all of me, like “allllll o’ dis.” (I’m bad at explaining stuff, sorry hehe.) But anyways, the sign language interpretation so beautifully portrays what we need to do: say “I drop everything, God, and give every bit of me to You.” Jesus died for you (then rose again!); that’s an amazing example of a life commitment. He was born to die (and rise again!), and He realized that. May we die to our sin and take hold of the new life that Jesus offers us. I mean it.

We as humans were made to love adventure, to want to do big exciting things. One particular week I was feeling kind of down and like God wasn’t using me in the big ways I wanted Him to. So at youth group one Wednesday, we were singing “Devotion”, and I was kind of just mindlessly singing along until it got to the part that says “I will take up my cross and follow, LORD, where You lead me.” At that moment, if ever I have heard God’s voice (though not audible) it was then, and He so clearly seemed to say to me, “That is no small calling.” Waking up every morning, denying myself, and choosing to follow Christ no matter the cost is an adventure, and it’s not easy by any means. And I fail a very large majority of the time.

So my challenge to you is this: wake up each morning and re-sign up. If ever you received salvation, you have it and no one can snatch that away from you. But you need to re-DEDICATE your life every single morning. Preach the gospel to yourself every single day, and do not let it become stale to you.

Do it. I dare you.