Take up your cross

Take up your cross

   “Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.  
What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?  
Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?  
If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” 
                                                                                                   Mark 8:34-38.
Here is a clear statement of what it can be to be a Christian. Jesus makes it abundantly clear that we must be willing to take up our cross and follow Him.
The cross is a symbol of suffering and pain. We must be aware that as Christians we may have to suffer and die for our faith. We must take this into account when we decide to accept Christ into our lives.
Jesus also makes it clear that, “...whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”
As Christians I am convinced we cannot lose. While we may go through much suffering and pain be it simply from health problem or persecution from our enemies we still win.
I am reminded of a sixteen year old Christian boy who was told to renounce his faith in Christ by the terrorist group IS or die. He refused and was murdered.
This is the kind of thing we as Christians must be willing to do for the sake of the gospel.
Those of us who live in the democracies of the west enjoy incredible freedoms. Sometimes I believe we take our faith too much for granted.
We in the west can pop into a church without fear anytime in any city, town or village. We can worship without fear. That’s why I think we all to often put a golf game or football or dance classes ahead of our service to God. We forget how costly our faith is.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote,

“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, 

the gift which must be asked for, 

the door at which a man must knock. 

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, 

and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. 

It is costly because it costs a man his life, 

and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. 

It is costly because it condemns sin, 

and grace because it justifies the sinner.

 Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 

'Ye were bought at a price', 

and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. 

Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon 

his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. 

Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.” 

                                                   Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident. A founding member of the Confessing Church. He knew what it was to be a believer in Christ and stand up for your faith.
He was Born 4 February 1906 Breslau, Silesia Province, Prussia, German Empire Died 9 April 1945 (aged 39) Flossenbürg concentration camp, Nazi Germany just two weeks prior to the Allied forces liberating the camp.
Dear reader,
if you consider yourself a believer in Christ. If you consider yourself a Christian. How valuable is your faith to you? Is it so costly you would be willing to give everything up for it?
Is your faith in Christ the most important thing in your life?
Are you willing to take up your cross and follow Jesus wherever He will lead you?
To the Christians living in North America I would ask. Is Christ more important than the golf game, the soccer, baseball, dance classes, and other secular events?
Think about it