Taking up your cross....

Girls, I am loving loving hearing and reading your posts, please please keep it up! We could so use this as a tool to encourage each other and grow! I love you girls!


Here's what i learned today!....

Matt. 16:24-26
²⁴Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ²⁵For whoever wants to save his life^[a] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. ²⁶What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

If your like me you have probably read this verse many times in your life, and had a vague idea of what Jesus is saying right here to his disciples but not really understanding what he truly means. See, to us the cross has become such a common object. We see it around peoples necks, tattooed on peoples arms, and hanging in our homes, but to the disciples it meant something completely different. At the time they were told this, the cross was only a place of absolute torture created by evil men. The most cruel death meant for only the most heinous of men. We read this on the other side of Jesus death, where the cross is a place of torture but also a place of salvation. They however hadn't really caught onto that yet. Try to put yourself in their shoes, what must have been going through their minds. As I was studying this morning this verse came alive to me, and for the first time it started to make sense to me what Jesus was saying to them. He tells them three things: Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. For starters and to make it simple denying yourself simply means saying NO to selfishness. Saying no to our selfish ambitions to rise above other people, our selfish behaviors to get what we want when we want it, our selfish attitudes of caring only for our own interests, and our selfish desires to put our needs first above anyone else. Then we come to the next statement, take up your cross....this is saying yes. Yes I will be obedient in whatever you ask of me.  See enduring the cross was Jesus saying yes to obedience to the Father. Jesus knew what was coming, the torture, the pain. He even prayed so hard in anguish over it that he popped a blood vessel and drops of blood fell from his forehead. But to Jesus obeying was more important than being comfortable.
      SEE! That's what it means for us to "take up our cross." It means we're to say yes to God....yes to obedience. It means we are valuing what God says is important and blowing off the things that aren't. We're being loyal to the Father at all costs because he is worthy of our love, and were obeying him wherever, whenever, and however he leads. And we know that our ultimate reward is in knowing God is honored in our obedience.
So what does this look like daily?? I mean that's great Randi but how do I do this everyday? walking to class? Eating in the cafeteria?  I mean it sounds awesome, but I just don't know how to put it into my life? OKay well check this, I read these things in a devotional and I want to write them out, if nothing else just to make you think about them and how you are working each of these decisions out in your life every day.
We face a few dozen major decisions in our lives that are major forks in the roads in our lives such as:
-our choice of friends
-which college to attend
-what career to pursue
-who to marry
-how far to go in a significant relationship
-what habits we will develop in high school, college, and early adulthood
-how to relate to someone who has hurt us deeply
-whether we will fill our minds with trash or w/ healthy stuff
And.....
We face hundreds of smaller daily decisions like.....
-am I going to spend time w/God every day
-to rob someone's reputation by gossiping about them or to keep quiet
-to say something encouraging to someone instead of being sarcastic
-to take time to listen to a boring person or story
-to refuse to defend ourselves or talk about our success
-to grab a sinful thought and replace it with a truth from God's word
-to overlook an unkind remark
-to give and serve when it would be easier to stay in our own selfish world.
In ALL this remember Jesus is our example. PHIL. 2:5-8. Our motive for dying daily to self is one thing....to bring glory to God. Just as Jesus death on the a cross for our salvation was so that we could be glory to God. Phil. 2:9-11.
What are the benefits of this?? The cost is great but the rewards is greater.....
-We will bring glory to our God and experience the presence of God in our lives
-We will see his hand at work in us and through us
-broken hearts will be mended
-people who have lost their way will find direction and meaning
-prodigals will return home
-He will heal the hurts in our lives and give us hope and purpose
-we will sense the love and power of God in a way we never thought possible.

so this is my prayer for all of us, that we learn what it means to deny ourselves and take up our cross so that we can follow him with our whole hearts. And continue to fall more in love with him daily. Loving Him with all of our hearts, minds, and souls. And to understand that with love comes obedience, and we obey not because of obligation but because of our love for our Father.