"Then He said to the crowd, 'If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow Me." Luke 9:23 NLT
With so many denominations and sects of Christianity there is, it can sometimes be difficult to navigate the true way of following Jesus. Many people think they can believe in Jesus and not change. Many think they can go through life and do whatever they want to do and claim to be a Christ follower. Some of this thought comes from lack of biblical teaching. Some of it is because of poor teaching, then some of it comes from no teaching at all. I'm grateful that we can look at the scripture and actually glean from Jesus the actual cost of following Him. The first cost of following Jesus is your life. You have to die. Don't flip out. I don't mean literally, He already paid that price. You do have to die spiritually. You have to give up your will. One version says you must "deny" yourself. The New Living Translation helps us understand clearly, "you must give up your own way". When we follow Jesus, we make Him the Lord of our lives. That means we give Him the reign's of our lives and submit to His Will for us. In other words, our lives are submitted in obedience to His Word. It means my sole purpose in life becomes to please Him. The second cost of following Jesus is servant-hood. Jesus says, "take up your cross daily". Each of us that has been placed on the earth have a cross to bear. What kind of cross? Do I mean you have to be nailed to a cross? No. Each of us has been given a purpose that is supposed to impact the world. God created each of us uniquely in order to solve a problem in the earth, serve our fellow man, and to give God glory. Ephesians 2:10 says, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before hand that we should walk in them" (NKJV). The New Living Translation says, "For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago."(NLT) He's created us to do good, to serve. Every person in Christ has a job to do and a purpose to fulfill. It's our responsibility to discover and accomplish that purpose, through consistent study of the scripture, consistent attendance in gathering with a community of believers where you are being taught the scriptures, consistency in prayer, and consistent service to others. The third cost of following Jesus is loyalty. Jesus wraps up this verse with two words. "follow Me". The original word used for "follow" in the verse means, to follow one who precedes, join him as his attendant, to be his disciple and to side with his party. Before we made Jesus the Lord of our lives we were apart of the kingdom of darkness. But through His sacrifice we have been moved into the Kingdom of God. Now that we are apart of the Kingdom of God we should be about our Fathers business. What does that mean? II Corinthians 5:17- 20 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come. Everything is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, certain that God is appealing through us. We plead on Christ's behalf, 'Be reconciled to God.' (HCSB) We are to be about reconciling people back to God. We are to preach the Good News of Jesus every where we go and be a witness of the transformation that has taken place in our lives because of Him. (Acts 1:8) We get to take part in God saving the souls of men in the earth. Yes, it does cost to follow Jesus but the cost is nothing compared to the price Jesus paid on the cross for our sin. The cost of following Jesus is worth it. Sheldon
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"do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." Philippians 4:6-8 ESV
Many of us when we face negative situations, get stuck in a rut. We allow it to keep us from moving forward. Negativity begins to consume us and we begin to have a very negative outlook on life. For Christian's in particularly, when we have a negative outlook on life, it keeps us from being effective in building the Kingdom of God. Every Christian is called to make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20). We're all called to teach others about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and how to grow in relationship with Him. When negative things happen to us, it throws us off of our game. We forget about our purpose and we stop doing what we're called to do. The Apostle Paul in the verses above is dealing with a difficult and somewhat negative situation. As he was writing this he was sitting in a prison cell. I would say that's a pretty negative situation. As he's sitting in his cell he gives some pretty good advice on how to deal with difficult, stressful, and negative situations. The first thing that Paul tells us is that when we face negative situations we need to Relax. He says in verse 6a, "do not be anxious about anything". In other words, when we face negative situations we need to chill out. Don't overact, don't get anxious. A lot of times when we face negative situations we lose it and fly off the handle. When we fly off the handle we make things a lot worse then they really are. When we face a negative situation we need to relax and stay calm. The second thing that Paul tells us is that when we face negative situations we need to make our requests to God. verse (6b) says, "but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." When we face negative situations we need to talk to God about our situation. Many times when we face difficulty we forget the relationship that we have with God. Scriptures says that we as Christians are the children of God (Romans 8:16&17). If we're His Children, He our Father and we have access to everything that belongs to Him. In other words, God has everything that we need to deal with any circumstance that we may face. We just need to call out to Him (Jeremiah 33:3, James 1:5). As we talk to God about our situation the scripture promises us peace. The Third thing that Paul tells us is that when we face negative situations we need to Remember the good things. When we face negative situations it's very easy to just focus on the negative. If we just focus on the negative the situation will never improve. If you're like me, and you're a Christian you probably have a history with God. When we face negative situations we should reflect back on the things that God has done for us in the past. We've faced negative situations before and He's taken care of us then, He can do the same thing now. We shouldn't just focus on what He's done but we should also focus on who He is. In v.8 Paul tells us "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things". Jesus is all of these things. When we get face negative situations we should focus on the person of Christ. As we focus on Him and we meditate on the good that He has done for us we should be able to stay positive in negative situations. I hope this encourages you today. When you face negativity, and you will, remember to relax. Don't lose it and overreact. make your request known to God. Remember the relationship that you have with the Father as His Child and talk to Him about your situation in prayer. Then focus, remember the good things. Don't focus on the negative, focus on person of Jesus and what He has done in your life. If He's done it before, He can do it again. Sheldon |
AuthorHusband, Father, Red-Letter Christian, Preacher of the Gospel. Archives
June 2021
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