Take Up Your Cross

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24Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.…

 Matthew 16:24

     

   From an ordinary man's viewpoint these words are rather hard to grasp, yet for the one who pledged, "okay Lord, I'll follow You", these words are very significant. It took me more than twenty years to understand the weight of Jesus' words. Jesus is no ordinary man. The depth of His faith is far more different. His visions are different. His way of thinking is different. His ways are different. He is different not because He is the Son of God, but because He knows the way of this world is not the way of God. And that is what He is following. Following Jesus is taking up our cross because, let's face it, only few have the guts and the heart to follow Jesus rightly. When we do good and are kind,  and yet still, we are criticized and being branded as weak, this is the first realization that we already are taking up our cross. Whatever the costs of our following Jesus would not matter, as long as deep in our hearts we believed, we are doing this for Heavenly gains.