Taking Up Your Cross

A Christian idiom that is well known but generally not well understood is that of taking up your cross. We talk about our crosses as if they were  inconveniences that are forced upon us, which interrupt or increase the level of difficulty we face as we live out our lives. Some have labeled bad backs or poor eyesight or even a cantankerous mother-in-law as their cross to bear. 

However, to begin with, crosses weren't inconveniences to live with, they were instruments of suffering to die on. A cross was not a taking on of anything, it was a giving up of everything - it was to give up your life, it is, for the Christian, a dying to self. Therefore, it is not some inconvenient add-on in your life, it is an altering of your life that involves suffering and loss.

Some people lose friends when they become serious about their faith. Others our cut off from their families when they make a decision for Christ. Missionaries give up their standard of living and the fellowship of everyone they know and the familiarity of everything they've known to serve Christ in a foreign land. Some give up careers to enter a life of full-time ministry, which demands they leave behind lucrative salaries and benefits for comparatively meager wages few, if any, benefits. 

The cross you will be called to take up will not be an addition to your life, it will be life-altering, if you choose to take it up. That is the other thing about this cross, it is not thrust upon you, it is presented as a choice, which you can accept or reject. Listen to the words of Jesus, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me" (Matt 16:24). Whoever "wants," not everyone "will."  

If you want a life that is not altered and requires that you never suffer loss, you do not want to follow the path (become a disciple) of Jesus. Jesus suffered loss that others might live. What are you willing to suffer or give up for others?  Jus' Askn.