Then Jesus said to his disciples,
"If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his
cross, and follow me.
Matt 16:24 (NET)
Following Jesus cost a lot more
things than we actually know. It is not easy of course, but Jesus give us just
two steps before following Him. With a lot of other words inside the Bible,
Jesus compresses it into two: deny yourself and; take up your own cross.
Denying yourself simply means refuse.
And what are you refusing of? Pleasures, your comfort zone, your gadgets, your
video games, your alcohol habit, your drugs, your cursing habit, etc. So much
things you can refuse more than you could think of. Of course it is not that
easy to break a habit, but the Lord wants us to deny ourselves for before we go
to the last step.
Take up your cross means accepting or
challenging social critics. It doesn't mean that you have to take a burden or
hardship literally when following Jesus. When you deny yourself, you are
starting to change your habits and for that, people around you begun to realize
how much you are changing and will become critics about it. This will be you
cross taking up, all those blames and comments because they don't know the real
story.
When we're done with this two, we can
now decide to follow Jesus. Remember that there are lot of notes in the Bible
to help you out with His instruction. Just don't lose your faith, deny yourself
and take up your cross.
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