Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?” Matthew 16:24-26 NLT
They had been following Jesus for a long time now. They didn’t know it, but they were now in the last year of Jesus’ physical presence with them. He had called them individually about two years previously. They WERE His followers, weren’t they? He called them His disciples. What was up with this? Maybe it felt like overkill to them. They had left their careers, their reputations, their comforts to the best of their ability already, hadn’t they? Was there more?
Always more. It’s everything ongoing. We tend to think and talk about certain “crosses we have to bear” and specific desires we deny. Self-denial is not merely a periodic practice. We aren’t occasionally called to pick up a certain cross; we are called to an entire way of life. It’s common for pastors and teachers to challenge us to “count the cost” of following Jesus. But the real issue is not counting the cost of following Jesus – it’s our willingness to follow Him regardless of the cost. When we really get it, when our hearts are truly His, the greatness or littleness of the cost is no longer emphasized; rather, all of life is surrendered to Him. We simply follow and the price tag is irrelevant.
Think about this – they weren’t even completely clear on their beliefs about Him. They didn’t know if He was going to establish an earthly kingdom yet – they were still hoping. They wavered on what the “Son of Man” and “Son of God” meant. They had never thought to call him “Savior.” We spend considerable time spinning our wheels on theological issues that weren’t key to their following and certainly aren’t to ours either (regardless of what our neighbor, the theologian, may tell us 😊).
Jesus told them and tells us that WHAT we believe may not be perfectly tacked down, but WHO we believe and WHAT WE DO about Him is of ultimate importance. We GIVE UP, DENY ourselves, and we pick up our cross forever and daily – no turning back. When we disciples stand before Jesus to give an account of our lives, we will not be asked what we believed. We will not hand over the list of doctrinal beliefs to which we subscribed. The only thing that will matter is how we followed.
Back to the significant question, “What have you left behind in order to follow Jesus?” What have you walked away from so you could become more like Him and introduce others to Him? What does today require you to surrender, regardless of the cost? That’s following.
- Jesus, help me surrender daily, always, regardless of the cost. Be my life by my choice.