Daily Devotional
Word of the Day
A Matter of Will
Pastor Scott
Monday, March 07, 2005
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"And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me."
(Luke 9:23)
"If any man will..." The cross is a matter of your will. It's not going to be forced on you. The cross that you and I are going to bear is distinct from the chastisement of God. Many of us think being under pressure and under discipline is the cross. That's not the cross; that's chastisement. God chastens us for disobedience to mature us, which is separate from our will. It's being afflicted on us because of God's love. The cross is embraced willfully. You go to the cross; it doesn't come to you. It won't chase you down; you have to go place yourself upon it and identify with it.
"If any man will [choose, commit to] come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life [for himself, to consume upon himself, for his own purposes] shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same [will come to the realization of what life is all about]" (Luke 9:23-24). The greatest question ever asked is answered in self-denial. Why am I here? I am here to know God, to serve Him, to keep His commandments, to fellowship with Him, and to honor Him. The whole duty of man is to love God and to keep His commandments. Is that what your life is all about? Is that what you are teaching your children?
What value do I place on the cross and self-denial? Am I glorying in how different I am and how much less of self--self-will, selfishness, self-exaltation--there is? Is that my boast? How much of God is being given from me? Am I esteeming others better and losing my life that I might find out what life is really about? In that I am able to embrace contentment. It will always be foreign to our natural man. Your flesh is not going to change; it will always want to consume things upon itself. It will always want more, ease and preeminence. That's why Paul says in Roman 6 that the old man was crucified with Christ. There has to be this crucifixion daily. Every day you have to put it down.
For the joy that is set before us we endure the cross. There's a day coming, beloved, when there won't be any more tears or struggle, when we will know as we have been known. We will see Him as He is. Up until that day, there is the brutality of the cross, the ugliness of death, and the pain of self-denial that brings the joy of obedience. Your joy will be unspeakable only when you have accomplished self-denial in the sequence of the days' events. For me to live is Christ, to die is gain (Phil. 1:21). That's not just a once for all event that's going to happen someday; it's a daily process. Dying daily is daily gain--joy, peace and comfort in the Holy Ghost.
In an hour of self-consumption and the party spirit in our nation, Father is looking for a people that will change their value system. What is really important to you? What distracts us from bringing God more glory, becoming more like Him, and becoming less bound by what the world says is important? Where is the gain of godliness in each of our lives? Where is the glory other than in the cross? Can we say that we love Him and not identify with the glory of the cross? We are nothing like the world. Their gods are not our gods. There's a war to be won and a victory to be claimed through the denial of the world and the glory of the cross.