Take Up Your Cross

Hello Guys and Gals!

I have been pondering the question of what does it mean to take up your cross and follow Jesus. Matthew 16:24-27 reads,

24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, ``If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS.

But what does this truly mean? I have been thinking about it and this is the conclusion I have come to!

Will you be in such stress during prayer that you sweat blood?
Will you be willing to have one you love dearly betray you completely?
Will you be willing to have the rest of the people who should be supporting you in your time of need turn their backs upon you and abandon you?
Will you be willing to stand before a court where they are lying to bring charges against you and not say a word in your defense?
Will you be willing to be whipped and scoured?
Will you be willing to be beaten so badly that you are no longer recognized as a man?
Will you be willing to carry your cross through a crowd of people who are beating and spitting on you as you pass, cursing you through it all?
Will you be willing to be stripped naked and nailed to that cross with spikes piercing your wrists and feet?
Will you be willing to hang from that cross, being made a curse, having to life your body with your arms and legs in order to take a breath?
Will you be willing to hang there, naked and bleeding, before your own mother and loved ones?
Will you be willing to be ridiculed by those who are being tortured similarly as you are?
Will you be willing to speak the truth even during all this so that you can say to someone that you love them and forgive them?
Will you be willing to have your side pierced with a spear to prove that you are truly dead?
Will you be willing to have people hate you, even after you are dead, because of the truth you speak?
Will you be willing to do all of this just so that you can speak the truth of God's love to those who are lost?

This is what it means to take up your cross and follow after Jesus! I do not know if you will face any of the above things I have listed, or if you will face some newly devised torture in the minds of those that hate Jesus Christ. But I do know that you will face something of the sort if you are to truly take up your cross and follow Jesus Christ!

Pretty scary stuff huh? But do you not also know that Jesus has already done this for us? Do you not also know that He will be there with us as we go through what we are to go through? Do you not also know that great will be your reward in Heaven?

Lord Jesus Christ, I will take up my cross and follow You no matter what I have to face!

May God, the Lord of all creation, bless you all this day!