Live Your Whole Life Following Jesus Along Death Row, Part 1

Jesus Calls Us to Take up Our Cross

David W Palmer

(Matthew 10:38–39 NIV) “Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. {39} Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”

When Jesus comes to this statement, I believe he is laying out the plain truth of what it takes to “find … life,” and to truly be his disciple. He said that if we don’t carry our “cross,” we are not “worthy” of him and “cannot” be his “disciple”:

(Luke 14:27 NIV) “And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

Rather than believing anyone else’s idea on what is required of us to receive eternal salvation, we should look at what Jesus said. After all, he is the one we are trusting to save us. In this verse, he again uses the phrase, “cannot be my disciple.” His implication is that if we don’t follow him, we will not arrive at the place to which he is leading us—God’s right hand—eternal safety. Furthermore, he says that the only way we can follow him fully is by carrying our cross.

To emphasize this essential prerequisite for receiving eternal salvation, Jesus repeated it in several other places. Let’s look at them, noting how many times he spoke about taking up our cross and following him:

(Mark 8:34 MKJV) And calling near the crowd with His disciples, He said to them, “Whoever will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.”

Here Jesus adds the phrase, “Deny himself.” This helps us better understand what it means to take up our cross and follow him. Self-denial is a central part of being a disciple of our Lord and Savior.

(Luke 9:23 MKJV) And He said to all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”

Luke records Jesus adding the word “daily.” Here, Jesus is getting us to think beyond the idea that he is talking about a one-off or occasional event.

Paul later wrote, “I have been put to death on the cross with Christ; still I am living; no longer I, but Christ is living in me” (Gal. 2:20 BBE). The apostle Paul was imitating Jesus who didn’t live out his own volitions or aspirations either; Jesus yielded completely to the will of his Father—the one who willed for him to ultimately die on the cross. Yes, Jesus’s literal crucifixion on the cross was only once, but in the lead up to the cross, he died to himself daily in a series of deaths to his own will.

(Matthew 10:38 MKJV) “And he who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.”

“Worthy” translates from a Greek word meaning: deserving, comparable, or suitable. Later, he returns to this same principle:

(Matthew 16:24–25 MKJV) Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. {25} For whoever desires to save his life shall lose it, and whoever desires to lose his life for My sake shall find it.”

In this passage, Jesus appended another thought: “Whoever wills to save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his life for me will find it” (Mat. 16:25 APE). We should note that the original word from which, “lose,” was translated means to destroy fully. Yes, Jesus said that whoever desires to save his own [self-governing] life will destroy it fully. But if we fully destroy our own life—the part of it that is independent of Jesus—we will find true life in Him:

(John 12:25–26 ISV) “The one who loves his life will destroy it, and the one who hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. {26} If anyone serves me, he must follow me. And where I am, there my servant will also be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.”

Jesus makes it clear that if a person wants to be where “I am”—both here and in eternity— “he must follow me.” This is a very powerful truth. We must bear this in mind when endeavoring to understand what it takes to be truly, and eternally, saved.

I know we are God’s sons and daughters, but so was Jesus; yet he took on the nature of a slave, and was obedient unto death (Phil. 2:5–8). The apostle Paul tells us to take on this same attitude.

If we—fully knowing we are sons, and fully understanding the privileges of divine sonship—still choose to serve Jesus like he did his Father, then this promise from him applies: “where I am, there my servant will also be.” By implication, this means that if we don’t serve and follow him, we will eternally end up where he is not; and that only leaves one possible destination …

Jesus wants us to arrive safely in heaven. He laid down his life to achieve this; Jesus left his home and privileges in heaven, came to serve humans, and to die in their place. He then rose from the dead and led the way to God’s right hand—entering through the veil to open the way for us. Yet even in that exalted position, he continues to lay his life down, serving there as High Priest forever:

(Hebrews 6:19–20 NIV) We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, {20} where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.

It bears repeating that if we want to end our journey where Jesus is waiting for us at God’s right hand, we have to follow him. In the passages we have been looking at so far today, we have seen what it will take for us to do this. We will have to lay our lives down, destroy fully our life in this world, take up our cross (like he did), and carry it every day. The apostle Paul added the idea, “I die daily”; this is a daily challenge. In other words, every day we will have the opportunity to deny self, and to keep carrying the cross behind Jesus; or to put down our cross, and take up our old carnal life again:

(1 Corinthians 15:31 AMPC) I assure you … that I die daily [I face death every day and die to self].

Today, I encourage you to think about sonship. Meditate on being God’s very own child, one he cherishes, loves, and created in the image he had in mind for you. Think about the privilege this is, and about how much he loves you. In truth, he loves you as much as he loves Jesus (if you are in Him). You have a good, good Father who cares for you, watches over you; has an inner image of who you are created to be, and of all the exciting things he has for you to do. Remember how nothing—not even humbling yourself in subservience to him to the point of dying for him—can separate you from his love.

Pause to reflect on the glories of heaven, your eternal destiny, and your eternal rewards. Then, against that backdrop, and with full assurance of your position in Christ, choose to serve. Jesus knew who he was, but didn’t choose to “cling to it”:

(Philippians 2:7–8 NLT) Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, {8} he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

This is what he calls us to imitate. This is what the life of taking up our cross and following Jesus means; and this is why we offer to “die daily.” We are secure in our position at God’s right hand in Christ; we are undeterred in our belief that we will sit with Jesus in his Father’s kingdom. But temporarily—because we also identify with Father’s heart for his lost world and with Jesus’s mission—we serve like Jesus did, laying our lives down to do his will. We imitate Jesus in his humility, denying (fully destroying) our life in this world; burying our own self-life, we allow Jesus to live through us:

(Galatians 2:20 NKJV) “I have been crucified with Christ; 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 for me.”