(GB Message)
“And He was saying to them all, If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?”, Luke 9:23-25 (NASB).
Taking up one’s cross daily indicates the believer’s responsibility to make spiritual discipline a daily routine. Satan and the carnality in us cunningly make us overlook this aspect and instead imparts to our minds the ‘Discipline yes but daily no’ rule. We have to devise ways and means of bringing it into our daily routine in spite of the counter suggestion of evil forces. Here, the God-given mind can come to our rescue in devising the ways and means of accomplishing this aim.
When God gives us the command, it is our duty to fulfill it. It is very wrong to assume that we can fulfill His command only to the extent ‘possible’. According to this logic, no one can be in hell.
There is nothing reclusive or remote about taking up one’s cross. It does not refer to a hermitic existence. Instead, it requires that we be very much ‘in the world but not of the world’. It requires that we be ‘not conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of ones mind.’ The question may arise as to how exactly this is accomplished. The clue here is in the word ‘daily’. Unless one makes it a routine habit, it will not be possible to fulfill His commandments.
