Follow Him

Matthew 16:24 – Then said Jesus to His disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

    Jesus had just spoken to His disciples about the Cross, foretelling them that He would be killed and rise again the third day. Peter, in fine form, took Jesus aside and rebuked Him because he was convinced that suffering could never be the will of God. Jesus spoke some of His strongest words as He corrected Peter and set him straight. He then issued some tough words to the rest of us.

    If any man will come after me. This phrase answers a lot for me. Is Jesus ahead of me in the direction of my life? If I look at where I am headed, do I see the Lord in front of me? He is Lord. He is in charge. He is supposed to be in front, I am to come after Him. He must always be first, I am always to be after. One day all the universe will clearly see Him for who He is; indeed, every knee shall bow. Wise people practice that now.

    If any man will. Anyone can choose to come and to follow after Him. It is a decision. It is a choice. It is a God-given freedom, and it is mine alone to make. I can choose to put Him first. It is not dictated by my life and circumstances. I can not blame my situation, my work, my family or any other thing. No! Whatever place I am in right now, good or bad, I have the choice to put Him first. Where there is a will there is a way.

    Let him deny himself. To deny is to choose to abstain. I might be denying myself that piece of pie, or denying a purchase, or denying myself the free time that I had set aside for my interests. It can be very hard to deny certain things, but Jesus never said to deny things; He said to deny yourself. My self-life must be denied. I must disown and disavow my self-centered life. Do not misunderstand me. We must take care of ourselves and live a balanced life, but selfishness is never okay. Self-care is good; self-focus is not.

    Take up his cross. There is a popular song that is sung in many churches today, and one phrase of it says gratefully to the Lord, ‘That You would bear my cross’. It is a beautiful song and I enjoy the artist, but that phrase contradicts what Jesus said here. We are to take up our cross. There is a Cross that we could never take up and that is the Cross of Christ. He is the only one who could do that, but there is a personal cross-bearing that must happen in the life of the believer. Now we mustn’t get confused about what it means to take up our cross, because there are many non-scriptural ideas about it. The context would indicate that the cross-bearing we are to experience has to do with putting Him first and self-denial. Luke’s account says we are to do this daily, strongly suggesting that this is a big part of our Christian life.

    Follow me. The good news about all of this is that Jesus is with us; He is right here. He has, by virtue of His Cross, experienced every imaginable hardship and test and come out of it victoriously. He knows. He understands our humanity. He has already provided for every possible contingency. There is nothing coming in our lives that He has not already foreseen and prepared an answer for. Nothing takes Him by surprise. He is for us, He is with us, He is in us. Our part is simply to follow Him.