Episode #295 What Does It Really Mean to Take Up Your Cross? – Unforced Rhythms of Grace

Hey friends, it's Jen. Thanks for joining me for this episode of Good God Talks. Today we're talking about being disciples of Jesus. Disciple means follower, Little Christ. That's what it means to be a Christian. We want to learn to live as Christ lives, and one of the ways that we learn to do that is by looking at and learning from how Jesus lived in his time here on earth.
So I'm gonna read a verse for us as we kick off today's episode. It's from Mark chapter 8, and it's verse 34. “Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’”

Now, almost instinctively, a lot of us draw back from these words.

Like, ooh, deny myself, take up my cross. Those things sound hard, they sound impossible sometimes. They sound painful. I'd rather just skip to the end part of follow me. But to be Christ's disciple means denying ourselves. It means taking up our cross. And by doing that, we follow after him. We get to follow after the way that Jesus lives, not just the way that he died.

And I'm referencing here, Richard Foster's book, the Celebration of Discipline he talks about this instinctual drawing back. And Richard says, “We are much more comfortable with words like self-fulfillment and self-actualization than we are with the thought of self-denial. In reality, Jesus's teaching on self-denial is the only thing that will bring genuine self-fulfillment and self-actualization.”

And he goes on to define or describe self-denial as “deciding that we don't have to have our own way, when our happiness is no longer dependent upon us getting what we want. Self-denial declares that we are of infinite worth and shows us how to realize it.”

And Foster goes on to really expound on and contrast the difference between self-contempt and self-denial:
Self-contempt says “I have no value,” or makes even the small value we do have seem shameful—often leading to unhealthy attitudes or behaviors.

Self-denial, on the other hand, recognizes that our worth is rooted in being made in God’s image and beloved by Him. It then guides us in practically stepping away from our ego-centered needs so we can live more fully into that God-given worth.

I am his beloved daughter. We are his beloved children. And so because of that, we can then practically step away from ego centered needs and live more fully into our God-given worth as Christ followers denying ourselves to care for other people.
Jesus didn't just die a cross death on earth. He lived a cross life. He freely accepted servanthood and he gave of himself for others. And I was thinking about this because I grew up in the years of like Columbine and school shootings. And so I remember as a teenager, maybe even a preteen, being confronted with the reality of, am I willing to die for my faith?
It felt like a very practical, tangible possibility. Greater than that is the day by day moment by moment opportunities that we have to live a cross life, to live according to our faith, to live from the identity that God gives us. And to grow as his disciples by picking up that cross life and giving of ourselves for others.

There's a lot of ways that that has been misused, that has been counterfeited and contorted into unhealthy things in society. I wanna acknowledge that this is not a call to self-contempt.

This is not a call to devalue ourselves. But as Christ followers, we get to live Mark 8:34. We can deny ourselves for the good of others, in light of our identity. In light of our worth, in light of the worth of the people we interact with, we can give of ourselves living a cross life. The way of servanthood, the way of generosity, the way of caring for other people.

Foster says, ““We are not called to death, we are called to life. There is joy in submission and freedom to let go of our own way. The obsession to demand that things go the way we want them to is one of the greatest bondages in human society today. In the discipline of submission we are released to drop the matter, to forget it.”

We don't have to be bound to demand things go the way that we want. But instead we get to live the life of the cross.
And so here's a question that we can take to God today, releasing our ways to him and making more room for his ways in us as we go about daily life. Freedom comes when we release our grip on control.

So here's a question you can take to God today:

God, where might you want me to lay down my way so I can take up yours?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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