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Sometimes we hear of some misguided Christians carrying a wooden cross, and some others even being nailed to a cross. That is their understanding of 'taking up the cross'. Jokingly or otherwise many people refer to some difficult person or situation as a cross they are forced to carry! But these are not what Jesus meant. "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'" (Lk.9:23). This is what everyone must do if they want to follow Jesus in order to learn from Him and become like Him. This is something for us to do daily, and it is what we must do voluntarily and not out of necessity or compulsion. What exactly did Jesus mean?

The primary purpose for which Jesus took the form of a man and came here was to make the way for our salvation (Mt.1:21). Many people are impressed by the miracles He did and think of Him only as Someone to go to when they are in trouble. But those who have seen themselves as sinners in the sight of the holy God, repented and received the salvation that Jesus brought, now want to stop sinning and to become like Jesus in His character. When they step out to do this, the greatest hindrance they find is from within themselves, from their sinful flesh (Ja.1:14,15). If we want to be saved from the power of sin in our life and to experience victory over sin, what we need to do is to learn to deny ourselves what we are tempted to do from our flesh in order to do the will of God (Ro.6:12-14).

This was what Jesus meant by telling us to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily. He is not asking us to deny ourselves and become ascetics, but to deny ourselves so that we can instead do the will of God (Ga.2:20). This is the picture of all who have chosen to follow Jesus as His disciples as those who are crucified with Christ. If the world draws us to it with its offer of glory, we hold ourselves in the position that we are crucified to the world (Ga.6:14). There is also the picture of those who have crucified their flesh with its desires so that the desires will not be fed and the flesh will eventually die (Ga.5:24).

Many Christians wonder why after they have put their faith in Jesus and committed their lives to Him, they are still finding themselves overcome by their fleshly desires. When we are born again, God gives us a new heart that does not want to continue in sin. As we saw earlier, we are now expected to stop yielding our body to its desires but to present it to God as instruments to do His will in different ways. For this there are two steps. Just as in the example of entering the narrow gate and then walking along the narrow way, we have to begin by making a decision to keep our flesh on the cross, and then we have to deny ourselves and take up the cross daily in order that every single fleshly desire is put to death (Ro.8:13). What happens if we just put our trust in Jesus and wait along for Him to save us?

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