Are You OK with the Cross Being a “Must”?

24Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? Matthew 16:24-26

Most of us like the idea of traveling light. We’re more open today to acknowledging everyone has some “personal baggage,” but even then we’d probably be happy to get rid of it. In general, we want to simplify life and avoid anything that weighs us down. Jesus’ words to his disciples are jarring. Following him means taking up a cross. Jesus calls it a “must.”

That does not mean Christians need to manufacture suffering or go looking for hardship. The cross comes naturally when we follow Christ faithfully. It comes when we resist making comfort and convenience the highest goals of our lives. It comes when love moves us to carry . . . . someone else’s burden instead of insisting on our rights. It comes when we hold firmly to God’s Word in a culture that would rather leave truth vague and undefined.

That kind of life will sometimes cost us. But Jesus asks, “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” A life with no cross but also no Christ is no gain at all.

Jesus did not just tell us to take up a cross. He took up his cross first. He denied himself for us. He carried our sin, our guilt, and our condemnation all the way to Calvary. Through his cross we have forgiveness, life, and an eternal future that nothing in this world can take away.

We do not fear the cross that comes with following him. We carry it with hope, not in our own strength, but in his, surrounded every step by God’s grace.