Take up the cross
The cost of following
Jesus stated the terms of discipleship without softening them: if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Three movements, in order: deny yourself, take up your cross, follow. There is no following Jesus that skips the first two. The death of self is not an advanced option for the spiritually ambitious; it is the entry requirement for everyone who would come after him.
To deny yourself does not mean denying yourself some pleasure, like giving up a luxury. It means denying the self itself — saying no to the self's claim to be in charge, dethroning it as the center and ruler of your life. And to take up your cross, in Jesus' day, meant one unmistakable thing: to carry the instrument of your own execution, to walk deliberately toward death. The image is of a self led out to die.
This is the hard center of everything this stage has been about. Following Jesus is not adding him to a life still ruled by the self; it is the daily dethroning and death of the self so that he can reign. And yet, as the next breath reveals, this death is the doorway to life: whoever loses his life for Jesus' sake will find it. The cross looks like the end of everything, but it is the way to true life. Take it up — for the self that dies with Christ is the self that finally, truly lives.
“If any man desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
— Jesus, to his disciples — Matthew 16:24 (WEB)
Take up the cross daily — denying the self's claim to rule and following Jesus — trusting that the life surrendered is the life truly found.
“Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake, the same will save it.”
We treat the death of self as an optional, advanced discipline, when Jesus makes denying the self and taking up the cross the entry requirement of following him. The interior work is to accept that discipleship is not adding Jesus to a self-ruled life but daily dethroning the self so he can reign — and to believe the paradox attached, that the life clutched is lost and the life surrendered to Christ is the life truly found.
This week, identify where the self is still on the throne — insisting on its own way, its rights, its rule — and deny it there: take up the cross by deliberately surrendering that claim to Christ, and follow him in it.
Self-preservation is the oldest instinct of the flesh, and it will recast the cross as pure loss — admirable for saints, optional for you — so the self keeps its throne and Jesus is added only around the edges. But the life clutched is the life finally forfeited, and the soul that walks itself daily toward death with Christ is the one that wakes to find it has been alive all along.
We are tempted to treat the death of self as an advanced discipline for the especially devout — admirable, but optional. Jesus presents it as the entry requirement for anyone who would follow him: deny yourself, take up your cross, follow. There is no discipleship that skips the dying. To follow Jesus is not to add him to a self-ruled life, but to dethrone the self so he can reign.
The terms are stark by design. Denying the self means saying no to its claim to rule; taking up the cross means walking the self deliberately toward death. This is the hard center of the whole journey. And yet the same breath that demands the death promises the life: whoever loses his life for Jesus' sake will find it. The cross is not the end of life but the doorway to it. The self clutched and protected is the self ultimately lost; the self surrendered and crucified with Christ is the self that finally, truly lives.
- Do I treat the death of self as optional rather than the entry to following Jesus?
- Where is the self still on the throne of my life?
- Can I believe that the life I surrender is the life I truly find?
Lord, I try to add you to a self-ruled life rather than dethrone the self so you can reign. Teach me to deny myself, take up my cross daily, and follow you. And let me trust that the life I lose for your sake is the life I truly find. Amen.