What Is Our Cross?

We remember that Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23 NKJV). Just before saying these words Jesus had predicted His death (Luke 9:21-22). So it is just after mentioning death, which we know was on the Cross, that He states that each person endeavoring to follow Him must take up his cross and follow Him.

Some may look at this in an extreme way and take the Lord’s words to be an encouragement to martyrdom. While there have been and may well be circumstances in which our faith may require that extreme a sacrifice such is not the primary meaning of the passage. If that was the Lord’s intention rest of the New Testament’s teaching on how to live as a child of God would not have been needed. The context of the passage clearly indicates the significance of the passage for us.

We must recognize that first century Christians did live under the threat of loss of life as a result of their faith. This reality undergirds Revelation 2:10 in which the church at Smyrna was told to “be faithful unto death.” Christians could and did lose their lives in the first and following centuries. Nero’s reign in Rome cost Paul and others their lives.

Some Christians today are challenged with the same thing as we see in the tragic news from some African countries. As hard as it is to imagine for us today it is a proven case that the most civilized and progressive of nations, and I have in mind Nazi Germany, can persecute and kill their own citizens for their faith. So we know that it has come down to a “faith or death” question. We pray fervently that it never does for us, and I certainly do not think it will, but it could.

But Jesus goes on to make the application of the principle here revealed for us. We see it in the magnificent expression, “whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.” We know the ultimate application: if we remain faithful to God for all of life (“losing” life means not living selfishly and only for the present) we will be saved in eternity. The next verse makes this clear “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and is himself destroyed or lost?”

This life in the here and now is under consideration generally and how we live it specifically. If we allow ourselves to be wrapped up in materialistic pursuits in this life to the exclusion of spiritual principles we will be lost. Sometimes carrying our cross is as simple a thing as applying the principles of the Christian faith to the things we do every day to provide for ourselves and our families.

Jesus substantially expands bearing one’s cross in Luke 9:26. “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels.” The passage makes us think of Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ….” This has application for all of us who, thankfully, are not under threat of losing our lives because of our faith. We cannot allow ourselves to be ashamed of Jesus Christ or His words.

Just here we might well remember that Jesus was and is the “Word” (John 1:1-4, 14). A careful study of the subject will indicates that all of the Bible is His Word, sent by the Holy Spirit to men who wrote down what God wanted them to write (2 Timothy 3:16-17, 2 Peter 1:20-21). Thus to be ashamed of the Word of Christ is to be ashamed of the clear and plain teaching of the Bible, properly studied and understood (2 Timothy 2:15).

There are a number of things about and in the Bible about which we cannot have complete knowledge, but what is plainly put before us we can indeed know. Being faithful to Christ’s teaching is part of bearing our cross and following Him. This is essential to our salvation.

Bill Irby