And he said to them all, “Anyone who wants to come with me must forget self, take up their cross every day, and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their own life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will save it. Luke 9:23–24 (GNB)

It is only because he became like us that we can become like him. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

Most people think of the cross as an event, the gift of forgiveness to us when Christ made atonement (the covering) over sin.  We are forgiven because we have accepted the cross to be sufficient for us.  Christ was sinless and offered His life for our sin.  He is Lord of all and the promised Messiah.  Amen.

But Jesus does not speak of the cross in that manner, and Paul and the other apostles did not speak of the cross in that way alone.  There is another dimension besides atonement and the forgiveness of sin.

The cross is a way, a path, a pattern of life through which we find real life.  Read the passage above again.  Losing our lives will save them.  It doesn’t make much sense, unless we look at the life of Jesus and how He lived.  He is the teacher; we are the apprentices.  Paul said in Ephesians 5:1, “therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.”  If we aspire to be fully alive, we imitate God in Christ. He shows us what carrying a cross is all about.  He is not the mournful martyr.  He is not on a death march to Jerusalem.  He is about to change the world and He invites us to follow and do the same.

It is a daily follow.  What is meant by that is contrary to the common path of the Christian which tends to be focused on events rather than abiding or remaining (see John 15: 1-18).  There are mountaintop experiences as we follow Christ, like Peter, James, and John with Him on the Mount of Transfiguration, but the (trans)formation into being His follower happens in the little things, the daily things.  We often consider them to be insignificant and nonspiritual, when in actually they are the thread that creates the tapestry of our lives.  That is why Jesus says to pick up the cross every day, not just in worship or when with other Christians.

We begin as His students by trusting that He receives us as we are.  Please don’t miss that point.  Many of us stop right there, ashamed of what we do.  He receives us as we are.  “But God has shown us how much he loves us—it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us!”  Romans 5:8 (GNB) By faith we see a vision of who we are becoming, as the Holy Spirit daily empowers us, according to our will, and teaches us to love and live as Christ did.  That is the way of the cross.

As we walk with Him to Jerusalem let us consider and sit in silence before Him with the thought of a life where we live the way of the cross, the way of giving up our false goals and visions of life and are empowered and taught how to live like Jesus.

Imagine:

• Giving a blessing to someone who insulted you.
• Having the desire to sit by the unlovely at a restaurant.
• Not feeling the necessity to be noticed.
• Letting yesterday’s problems go and not affect today.
• Forgiving without being asked to forgive.
• Laying down your life for your spouse.
• Complimenting the family member who is spoiled and unhappy.
• Lending to someone with no hope of repayment.

Consider the freedom of life like that.  It does not come easily or quickly, but daily as we wait before God, trusting in His love for us, and in faith that He will complete the work he has begun in us.  Faith begins to arise when we accept this as His goal in us and believe that it is a way, an everyday process.

Jesus, who are we going to love today? Jesus, who are we going to forgive today? Jesus, how are we going to less demanding? Jesus, how are we going to find someone today who really needs encouragement? Jesus, how are we______________________?