"Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will save it."
- Luke 9:23-34
In this verse, Jesus predicts His death and then tells the crowd that living a life for Christ is a daily process. We are called to literally deny ourselves every single day. That means considering yourself as nothing compared to Christ, daily following the Lord and yielding to His presence. We are also called to take up our cross every day, meaning that every day we should be so in love with Christ that we are willing to die in order to follow Him. Dying to self. This is a call to completely surrender to the Lord and all that He has to offer. Sounds intense, but the reward is incomparable to anything else. Jesus never candy-coated his sermons nor did He try and display things as easy and very do-able. Jesus was real with us, and He still is real with us. He gives it to us straightforward, reminding us that a godly life isn't easy. But He then says that if we do deny ourselves and take up our cross daily, we will be saving our life. Personally, I find it extremely difficult to deny myself. How can it be easy to deny yourself in a world that constantly tells you to look good, feel good, wear the right clothes, say the right things, make perfect grades, make a ton of money, etc. Our world uses the media to make perfection seem like something everyone should desire daily and work towards achieving. But Christ says just the opposite. He says DENY all of that. Deny yourself. I struggle a lot with pride, so this is something hard for me to constantly try and do. Especially being in college now, feeling like we all have to impress the world with our grades, our resume, our friends, and our social activities. I think denying yourself is so so hard in college. But that's why Christ says it's a daily process. We must train ourselves, through prayer, scripture, and time spent with God, to consider ourselves nothing compared to Christ. To completely deny ourselves and take up our cross daily. It's not easy but Christ tells us that it is worth it. Our reward in heaven will be better than anything we could ever imagine.
