“Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me.”- Mark 8:34 NKJV

“Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”- Mark 8:34

Those were the words spoken by Jesus as He gathered His disciples and the others around Himself. Although they could not comprehend what Jesus was saying at that moment, He still wanted to make them aware of what would be required of them if they truly wanted to follow Him (and be considered His true disciple).

As I sat and began to meditate on this verse, I realized there were four significant things that should be considered here.

Mark 8:34: “Deny yourself, Take up your cross, and Follow Me.”

1. You must choose to follow Him.

When Jesus said, “whoever desires to come after me….” What He means is, if you truly want to follow Him there’s three critical things that must happen. First, following Jesus needs be a personal choice. While God desires for us all to obey and follow Him, He doesn’t force us into doing anything.

God gave us all free will, which is the freedom of choice. He would rather you make the conscious decision to give up everything and follow Him. To Him, it’s more meaningful when you make the choice in your own heart to willingly pursue Him.

2. You must deny yourself + your fleshly desires.

Our flesh is in a constant battle against our spirit because it wants things that are not of God, but of our flesh. God tells us to walk by the spirit and in the spirit, and we shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh, (Galatians 5:16, NKJV). Oftentimes, we give into our fleshly appetite, which leads us to all kinds of unpleasant circumstances.

Once you have decided in your heart that you will follow Jesus, you must first deny yourself and your personal will. Then, you must submit to the will of God for your life.

Denying yourself means that you are willingly giving up your wants and desires for the sake of following Jesus. This requires willingness, discipline, commitment, prayer, dedication, and intimacy with God.

Our nature is contrary to God’s nature. With the help of God’s Holy Spirit it will be possible to follow Jesus, but not easy. You are going to have to put in some work. This is a lifelong journey, not something that happens overnight.

3. God wants you to pick up your own cross.

To pick up your own cross, you would have to first understand what the cross symbolize. The cross symbolizes humility and selflessness. It symbolizes all things that Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross for. And it symbolizes the death of sin + the death of all fleshly things.

Jesus bore the cross, He was righteous in the flesh, He was selfless, and He endured death for the sake of righteousness. He did all those things and more so that we would be a forgiven people, be saved, and receive salvation; eternal life.

When you pick up your cross, you must nail to it all the things that Jesus’ cross symbolized. Your own sins, cares, and burdens must also be nailed to it as well. You must die to your flesh, to sin, and to all things that are not of God.

Praying, staying in God’s word, and aligning properly with Him are some practical things that can help you die to your flesh. Also, practicing self-control and self-discipline, daily.

4. You must totally follow Him.

As you continually strive to deny yourself and pick up your cross, He wants you to follow Him. Following Him means that you must let go of both your former and present life and pursue Christ. You must let go of what is familiar or comfortable, and follow after Him. Do this by staying in His word, praying for direction + guidance, and being in a position to hear from the Lord. Being in a position to hear from God requires you to disconnect from distractions that are around you. Removing distractions will help you to focus more.

You must completely trust God to lead you down His righteous path. His path is full of goodness, mercy, humility, selflessness, love, joy, peace, and every good thing. This can be a bit scary at first when you are a person who’s used to being in control of your own life. Nevertheless, when you choose to follow after Him, you are giving Him full permission to lead and guide you.

To go a bit more in depth about what it means to deny yourself and follow Jesus, check out What does it mean to take up your cross and follow Jesus?, written by Compelling Truth blog.

This post was about taking up your cross and following Jesus.