Take Up Your Cross and Follow Him

Author: Joseph

Date: May 31, 2020

Yeshua’s death was foretold many times by both prophets before Him and by Yeshua Himself. The main reason He came to earth was to die and atone as a perfect sacrifice for the sins of mankind. His death, however, was not a peaceful passing away. He was tortured, beaten, mocked, rejected, falsely accused, and humiliated, dying the death of a criminal. Yet, this was what He had to endure from a world that was corrupt and exceedingly wicked. By loving the Father and being completely submissive to His will, Yeshua suffered.

The same hatred and persecution Yeshua faced also became the expectation for the lives of those who followed after Him – His disciples. Since Yeshua, the Master suffered, surely His disciples did as well. It has also become the expectation for you, as a disciple of Yeshua today.

If you are not willing to suffer as Yeshua did throughout His life and at the cross, then you are not genuinely following God. By choosing not to suffer with Him, you have rejected His calling and have consequentially rejected Him.

“And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it”

(Matthew 10:38-39)

Yeshua’s words are absolutely certain. If you do not bear your cross and follow Him through suffering and even to death, then you are unworthy of belonging to Him. Since you are unable to give up the life you want to live and you are unable to carry through suffering as He did, you have given up on Him. He says that we must lose our lives for His sake if we want to preserve our lives in Him. It is a voluntary and necessary sacrifice we must make in order to live the life He has called us to.

What does it look like to take up our cross and follow Him? It can look like many different things, but it requires all of us to deny ourselves and the life we want to live including: the acceptance from others we want to keep, the status we want to maintain in society, the pleasures and treasures we want to gain, and any desire that has not originated from God’s will for our lives. We must be completely willing to let ourselves go and accept whatever God has for us (which is good, though it may be greatly opposed to what our own will desires).

Taking up our cross can also mean literal, physical suffering. Remember that the disciples of Yeshua were falsely accused, chased, beaten, brought before the courts, imprisoned, and even executed. The world in all its attempts to tear us away from our relationship with Yeshua will do anything in its power to get us to deny Him and to get us to try to save our lives by our own strength. It’s the worst kind of persecution. It causes us to doubt, then panic, and finally to suffer by using the lie that we are all on our own and that God has somehow forsaken us by allowing us to suffer. God will not forsake you when you suffer for His sake. God did not call us to a life of suffering to then abandon us when it happens. When we pick up our cross, and follow Him into suffering, we have also followed Him to the victory that comes with that sacrifice. Yeshua did not die on the cross and have His life end there. He was raised again and given the victory over death. We, by taking up our cross, also follow Him to the victory.

"God did not call us to a life of suffering to then abandon us when it happens."

You must endure the suffering of the cross you carry in order to be worthy of the life that God has called you to. If you are scared, if you are dreading the possibility of suffering for Him, know that Yeshua was also distressed before His death on the cross (Matthew 26:36-38). Just as He prayed for only God’s will to be done, even if it meant His death on the cross, you must also submit yourself to God, no matter what the consequences. When you give up our life for His sake, He will preserve you forever and give you new life.

Matthew 10:38-39

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB). www.lockman.org