Description
Embracing True Discipleship: The Call to Self-Denial and Following Christ
In this episode, we explore the meaning of tr… (visit YouTube for more)
Transcript
I hope we can all agree that the gift of salvation is completely free. There’s nothing that we can do to earn it, but once we’ve been saved, is there anything for us to do then? Well listen to what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 16, verse 24. Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
If we want to be true disciples of Christ, then there is work for us to do. There are implications to this. If we are truly going to follow Jesus, then there’s self denial. We put his purposes and principles before our own. Our desires and our decisions, we lay them down, we deny them to the extent that they don’t line up with what God wants for us.
And he says, if you want to follow me, take up your cross. What was the cross? Well, it was the implement of Jesus’, torture and death. Jesus voluntarily – voluntarily, because he was God and he could have stopped the whole process – he voluntarily took up that implement and went to Golgotha.
He’s saying, if you want to follow me, you have to be willing to do that, to volunteer for what I’m asking of you. This is truly radical, isn’t it, friends, it’s not necessarily the kind of Christianity that we want to buy into in our human nature.
Do we want to be abused? Of course we don’t. And yet Jesus says. If that’s what I’m asking of you, then you should do it, if you want to follow me.
The scripture really challenges us sometimes, doesn’t it? Are we putting our own wants and desires ahead of the kingdom of God? Are there things that God’s asking of us that we are ignoring because we’d rather do our own things?
This doesn’t affect our salvation one way or the other, but if we’re truly saved, then we will want to be obedient to the one who called us. This is food for thought and something worth meditating on.
