What is Your Cross?

Having to turn the other cheek when my carnal self wants to beat you to a pulp.

Having to love my enemies and answering the door at midnight.

Jesus said, "Matthew 10:16 (KJV) Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves:" so he pre warned us it wouldn't be easy. I just wish he didn't make the solution so tough to understand "be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. " :BangHead: :befuddled:

That be the cost of discipleship...

 

Paul had to bear a cross, but it was not of his own choosing.

I believe a cross is one the is given to us to bear, not one that we choose to carry.

 

It simply means that you have to die to self. You have to let go of your fleshly agenda and your fleshly desires so that the manifested life of Christ can be lived out through your members by the Holy Spirit.

 

Well said.

A cross is an instrument of death! It is not a burden we drag along behind us. When used, death results.

We must die to ourselves if we want to live. The be the greatest, we must be the servant of all. To find our lives, we must lose them.

I can't say it any better than Paul did in Rom 6:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

Hey we agree on something. Let's get this party started . . . let's get this party started . . . :1_grouphug:

 

Yes. We have to choose to bear the cross, but we do not necessarily get to choose the cross we want to bear...

This is not coming out right. I hope you can understand what I am trying to say. My clarity seems to have deserted me tonight.

 

This is talking about discipleship not eternal salvation, so I'm not preaching a works salvation. Discipleship is all about works.

As to this question . . . the entire ministry of Christ was about the offer of the kingdom. It means if you don't die to self then you will not be found worth to rule and reign with Christ.

This is in the same line of thinking as the man that puts his hand to the plow and then looks back is not worthy of the kingdom.

 

“Whatever else cross-bearing may mean, it certainly implies such voluntary identification with the Lord that He absorbs our love, devotion, time, talent, and strength to such a degree that nothing and no one else matters in our life except the Lord. Self-interest, plans, pleasures, position, and relations have been denied; self is dethroned and delivered to the Spirit to be crucified. Discipline, limitations, and dependence are accepted to follow the Master at every cost and at any expense, even the expense of life. Such is implied in crossbearing. Here we come to the heart of Christian discipleship. Rutherford is supposed to have said that there are some who would have Christ cheap, who would have Him without His cross; but the price will not come down. These are weighty words, leading us to the very heart of the theology of Christian discipleship and speaking of a depth of Christian experience difficult to fathom and rarely to be witnessed. (George W. Peters, “The Call of God” BSac 120 [Oct 63])

To take up a cross and follow Jesus means to join Jesus on the Cavlary road with a resolve to suffer and die with him. The cross is not a burden to bear, it is an instrument of pain and execution. It would be like saying, “Pick up your electric chair and follow me to the execution room.” Or: “Pick up this sword and carry it to the place of beheading.” Or: “Take up this rope and carry it to the gallows.”

The domestication of cross-bearing into coughs and cranky spouses takes the radical thrust out of Christ’s call. He is calling every believer to “renounce everything that he has,” and to “hate his own life.” (Luke 14:33, 26), and to take the road of obedience joyfully no matter the loss on this earth. Following Jesus means that wherever obedience requires it, we will accept betrayal and rejection and beating and mockery and crucifixion and death. Jesus gives us the assurance that if we will follow him to Golgotha during all the Good Fridays of this life, we will also rise with him on the last Easter day of the resurrection. “Whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:35). “He who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:25). (Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad, pp. 74-75).

 

In the gospels, Jesus said that people who don't take up the cross and follow him will lose their soul. That teaches us that this is about eternal salvation, and also teaches us that this is not about works.

 

Well I guess if you call Scripture a presupposition. Just curious why does everyone have presupposition but you?

Yep. You are either for Me or you are against Me. There's only two options.

 

EXACTLY!

Sorry but eternal salvation deals with the spirit and not the soul. And dying to self is all about works no matter how you serve it up. Works are works are works are works. Just curious how is "following" not a work?