take up your cross

by Moses Yxel

'' And When He had called the people to Him, with His disciples also, He Said to Them: ''Whoever desires to come After Me, Let Him deny himself, and take up His cross, and follow Me. ''( Mark 8:34 )

A notorious heresy occurred in all our Christian evangelical circle -a widely accepted concept that we, humans, can choose to accept Christ only because we need Him as Savior and that we can get our obedience to Him as Lord later, as long as we want it! ... What a tragedy!

Today we often hear the call of the Gospel on this basis: '' come to Jesus! You do not have to obey anyone. You do not have to change anything. You do not have to abandon anything-just come to Him and believe in Him as your Savior! '

So they come and believe in Him as Savior. Later, in a meeting or a conference, they will hear an other call: ''now that you have received Christ as Savior, you also want to accept Him as Lord?'' I call it heresy!

I think we still need to preach the world Christ in its totality -a Christ who does not need our apologies, a Christ who will not be divided, a Christ who will be the Lord of all, or the Lord of anything! The Lord will not save those whom He can not command!

What are you afraid of losing? What are you afraid to give up? Why do you worry to deny yourself, to take up your cross and to follow Christ? It's always this kind of fear that stop people.

Are you watching these fears as the  unavailing manure, and will you come to Christ anyway? If you do, you will become a very special person in the eyes of God!

Jesus, I took my cross, I have every reason to follow you.

Despised, abandoned, alone you become my everything.

May every ambition perish, all that I seek, hope, known.

For I am rich, God and heaven are to me!