What Part of “Pick Up Your Cross” Seems Comfortable?

There is a problem that has existed since time has begun: humanity desires God on its own terms. Think about it: the original temptation was “you won’t die, you’ll be like God if you disobey His voice.” Since Eve ate the fruit, and Adam followed suit, we’ve been chasing that very dichotomy. We insert “I think” or “I don’t think” in to interpretations of God’s commands, and forget that the only time we should state “I Believe” is when affirming the truths of Scripture. Why do we do it? Simply put, we want a faith that’s comfortable, and we want to be comfortable in our flesh instead of doing the hard work that is required to return to God’s design for us.

This pandemic is still widespread today: we want the church to be comfortable. We don’t preach hard truths for fear of committee, and we’re preaching more to crowds than we are to honor the God who breathed out the Scriptures we preach. We build programs, and buildings, and followings, but we don’t build the body of Christ. We make being the Church about Sunday mornings and evenings and, perhaps, a few other days of the week, but are we, like the early church, dedicated to the apostles teaching, breaking of bread, fellowship and prayer? Do we meet from house to house to encourage one another, and seek first His Kingdom? Are we more concerned about the shape of the building than building up the body and bringing people from death to life?

Jesus says if we’re to come after Him, we must deny ourselves, take up out cross daily, and follow Him. What is comfortable about a slow and painful death? We must decide if we’re going to feed our flesh or walk in the Spirit. We can’t have both ways. So,      I will follow Jesus since I died to my flesh in a death like His. I pray you join me!

Romans 6

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self^[a] was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.