day 1...taking up your cross

"THEN JESUS SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES, 'IF ANYONE

WOULD COME AFTER ME, HE MUST DENY HIMSELF

AND TAKE UP HIS CROSS AND FOLLOW ME.'"

-MATTHEW 16:24

So day 1 is all about taking up the cross and what that means. Have to say, Mr Nasser gave some history on the cross that even I did not know. For instance, did you know that as you walked from town to town, that they actually had men hanging on crosses outside as you entered the towns. Add that intimidation to the knowledge of how they hung you there and you slowly suffocated and the fact that it was a symbol of execution. I can only imagine the faces of the disciples as Jesus spoke those words to them. The cross is supposedly one of the most violent execution tools in history. So in modern day terms, you could kind of consider it like someone looking at you and saying, "Hey if you really love me, you would go jump in that electric chair". So imagine the looks Jesus got from that statement. But Mr Nasser made an excellent point in the fact that taking up your cross, meant total obedience to God. Completely denying yourself, to bring honor and glory to Him. But first you have to deny yourself.......

This is where the not so fun part comes in, you have to first deny your wants for God's. I know, as a christian, I should not word that as the "not so fun part". But come on, I'm trying to be honest and any honest christian will tell you that walking in the truth is not easy by any means and is definitely not without its troubles. So how do we deny ourselves?

1. deny yourself gossiping
2. deny yourself that show, that has horrible, unGodly values in it
3. deny your wants and serve someone else

and so on and so forth.....

I could rattle off a hundred specifics, but honestly its really about denying our human selfish ways and longing for God's ways. I'm not going to in anyway pretend that this is an easy task, after all as you read from yesterday's post, I tried this devotion once before and quit only a few days into it. But I feel like God doesn't need big important people to get things done. What He really wants is for a heart to say, "God, our way is not working, we need You! Here I am, send me!"

I do want to quote Mr Nasser on one thing he said, because it struck me like a ton of bricks and I couldn't say it better myself. "What is Jesus' call in this passage of scripture? It is a call to die, a call to let your selfishness starve to death because you don't feed it. If it won't starve, we have to grab our selfishness by the throat and strangle it. once again, remember we are talking spiritual, not physical issues. Because Satan is not gentle in dealing with us, we cannot be gentle in dealing with sin."