Give Up Your Cross Daily

A common theme I have been hearing lately is to “give up your cross daily.” At first I didn’t really know what this ment. What does giving up your cross even mean? Jesus died on the cross for our sins, but what does that have to do with giving up my cross daily?

Matthew 16:24

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

So it has to do with giving up ourselves to Christ to serve Him as a disciple.

A rich man came up to Jesus and asked Him “Lord, what good thing must I do to enter Heaven?” But Jesus responds by telling him there is no good man, and we must obey the commandments. He goes further by saying:

Matthew 16:21-22

If you want to be perfect go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Before I get to the point, I want to share another set of verses of another man wanting to follow Jesus

Matthew 8:18-22

When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”

Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

Following Jesus isn’t about what you can do for Him, but rather giving up everything for Him. We all want to follow Jesus our way, the easy way. We want to follow Jesus when it only means going to church, when it only means praying to God before you go to bed, when it only means professing His name on your facebook/twitter page, we only want to follow Jesus when it means doing the easy stuff. But when it gets hard and nasty, hey, thats what God’s grace is for right? .. Maybe, but if you can only commit to the easy things, ask yourself where is your heart? Is it truly for God?

In the two biblical passages, both of these men wanted to follow Christ but when Christ laid out the guidelines for them, neither one of them could commit.

I find it fascinating that that there are a few more stories (I believe) like this in the New Testament where people asked Jesus to follow Him, but once He told them what it means to follow Him, they all backed away. They couldn’t give up their cross to follow Him.

Those asking Jesus to follow Him, went away knowing they couldn’t live up to it. But then there are those, the 12 disciples, Paul, and some others throughout the bible, who God came to them first and said “Follow me” and they did, no questions asked. They gave up everything in their life, they gave up their comfortable home, their friends, their money, their family, everything they knew, to follow Christ.

The men Jesus sought out, who knew little about the man, gave up everything to follow Him. That takes quite a bit of faith.

So what does it mean to give up your cross daily and follow Him? It means giving up every part of your life to follow Him. It means stepping out of your comfort zone to share His Word. It means to keep on going, when others tell you you’re crazy. It means to confess all your sins before the Lord and admit your weakness. It means making Christ the focus out of everything in your life, the little things and the big things. It means giving up your life for Christ.

To add an ever more serious tone to it, many of the Apostles gave their life for Christ. To the apostles, taking up their cross daily and following Him, ment giving up their own life. I can’t even begin to express, or fathem, how serious their love and their relationship with Christ was. Some of us get uncomfortable just talking to our own family about Christ, but these men kept expressing their love for Him. To the point where government officials told them to shut up or they would crucify them, but they just couldn’t stop sharing His Word!! This is what it means to give up your cross for Christ.

What are you prepared to do?

---

Here’s a link to a song by Christian rapper KB about giving up your cross daily. For those that don’t like rap, I will post the lyrics below the song.

Lyrics:

Yo, so they may be like KB you got it goin’ on
In twenty years they’ll forget me like Kevin in Home Alone
Sown, grown and blown, mown and then its gone
That’s the history of grass, and man ain’t much more (Talk about it)
(Hit me) No one will care what you invented
Half the stuff that we use we can care less ’bout the origin
Listen, I ain’t trippin’ I love to lift up inventions
But more than liftin’ inventors, who invented the inventor That’s God (Talk about it)
My whole clique Christ lovers,
My outfit it might be plain, but I’m fly with the (w)right brothers
Life covered, Jesus he saves well
Free’s the mind for those doin’ time in a brain cell
Jesus ’til I expire, I may have a good year of
Fire stones fall from the sky, I’ll never tire
Serious don’t use the word play, this consonant word play
Competent conquerin’ content content e’rrday

We lost judged
Dead men walking on a dead earth
Looking for a heart and a soul search
Everything I want
It don’t mean much
It don’t mean much to me
Money, fame
Coming for your heart
Sex, drugs
Secret of the dark
Everything, everything the world wants
It don’t mean much
It don’t mean much to me

Yeah, Lord sometimes its envy on my lips, lust on my hips
Feet prone to slip because I’m so weak
We often fake like we’re meek, say we’re the least, speak deep
But the Lord is like son please
We exaggerate our strengths, hide our mistakes
That’s a bad place, cuz we only make his grace cheap
When I’m angry my pride wants to slay me
I know one person who needs to take up his cross daily, that’s me
Yeah, and our deepest desires might be the worst thing
Our hearts are wicked, you don’t know what that curse brings
I get something new then I look at you
If you have one and a litle that that, I want two, greed
We have peasants mimicking’ the life of kings
Yeah you have fame and things, you never had peace
Made in his image, but then we made a mess
Win, lose, or draw, he’s a picture of success
Say cheese

We lost judged
Dead men walking on a dead earth
Looking for a heart and a soul search
Everything I want
It don’t mean much
It don’t mean much to me
Money, fame
Coming for your heart
Sex, drugs
Secret of the dark
Everything, everything the world wants
It don’t mean much
It don’t mean much to me

You make a song about Jesus, you never going to hell
Yeah that’s written in the first book of (what was it) nowhere
I know that’s no bail , but his fare won’t go well
Lord help ‘fore our days end, like a hotel
‘Cuz death doesn’t care how many albums you sold
And death doesn’t schedule like this time or no
Death clock reading it’s sooner time to go
But it’ll be soon time to go
Chose God and grow
Watch the throne all you want, but it’ll never be ya’ll seat
The throne’s occupied like it’s palace on Wall Street
My God so great that He puts great to shame
Ain’t a man bad enough, he ain’t bad enough to save
Jesus, came here to save the worst of sinners
How you think I’m able to rap these verses with Him
To the earth He entered
Full of mercy in a
Death and the resurrection He got your boy singing

We lost judged
Dead men walking on a dead earth
Looking for a heart and a soul search
Everything I want
It don’t mean much
It don’t mean much to me
Money, fame
Coming for your heart
Sex, drugs
Secret of the dark
Everything, everything the world wants
It don’t mean much
It don’t mean much to me

Related articles

• Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me…What??? (relationaldiscipleship.wordpress.com)
• Living for Christ (livingbythegoodbook.wordpress.com)
• What does it means to follow Christ? (truthorshame.com)