Take Up Your Cross
Everything comes down to these four simple words. We do not need the rest of the Bible, technically at least, because if we take up our cross, we will be following Jesus and if we are following him, we are on the right track for gaining salvation
However, we need to make two points clear. If we have our cross on our back, we are going the right way, if we have not picked up our cross, we are not following him, and if we are not following Jesus, nothing will work out for us and no matter what seems to be happening, we will fail in the end.
It took me some 60 years to arrive at this conclusion and in the process every possible alternative viewpoint was entertained and eliminated. We are at this point, not because the author is particularly intelligent, but because he is honest. We arrived here because all the alternative places we could be at, were excluded with total finality. But what does the Bible mean when it tells us to take up our cross?
In the KJV, several different phrases are used: “take up his cross,” “taketh not his cross,” “take up the cross,” and “bear his cross.” The phrase or its equivalents appears six times in the Gospels, all spoken by Jesus as a condition for following Him.
Matthew 10:38. “And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.”
Matthew 16:24. “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
Mark 8:34. “And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
Mark 10:21. “Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.”
Luke 9:23. “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 14:27. “And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”
Matthew 10:38 and Luke 14:27 stress that failing to bear the cross disqualifies one from being a disciple or worthy of Christ.
Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, and Luke 9:23 teaches that the cross is a nonnegotiable command for anyone who would follow Jesus.
The phrase however, is not about passively accepting personal hardships as “one’s cross,” though later Christian tradition sometimes applied it that way. In its original biblical context, it is a deliberate, costly choice to follow Jesus wherever He leads, even to death.
Jesus took up his cross because it was thrust upon him by the need of a sinless sacrifice for our sins. This is not something Jesus choose. But it was something he was uniquely suited for.
Christians must look at their own cross in the same way. We cannot save people from sin, but we can build the church, which is a unique identity formed by believers coming together in the name of Jesus.
In practical terms we bind with other believers by means of the gifts we were given by God. We are all part of the same body but with different gifts.
The taking up of our cross is an act that finds conciliatory gifts, or people whose gifts mesh with our own. The sharing of the cross is the formation of an identity called the church.
In a broader context our taking up of our cross builds the nation. The small group in which the sharing occurs most intensely, is a microcosm of the nation.
The scenario suggests the cross is not of our choosing. Not only does it suggest taking up something provided by Jesus, but it is also something not of our choosing in that it is something designed to fit in with the rest of the body.
The best arrowhead maker has little value in an industrialized nation but in a paleolithic tribe his skills are of immense value.
There is an additional element to this we need to be cognizant of. Jesus did not sacrifice unilaterally, that is with no expectation on his part. Which is why we also need to take up our cross. We read in the parable of the talents that the master expected his gifts to his servants to be invested. The one who failed to make use of what he was given had what he was given taken from him and he himself was cast out.
This does not just pertain to us, but to those whom we help. We are told the worker is worthy of his wages and the man who will not care for his own is worse than a non-believer. A man who will not work, neither shall he eat. There is a call to be reciprocal.
All of these verses taken together gives us a picture of a different way of life than the one we are accustomed to. This way of life is what is usually called the conservative lifestyle.
Conservatism is not about hindering the progress of liberalism. It goes deeper than that.
Conservatism is about conservation, about conserving, but it is not just tradition we protect or traditional customs we are defending. It goes deeper than this also.
Conservatism is about Occam’s razor or what is also referred to as the principle of parsimony. Conservatives look to find the least complicated way of doing something, which is why we introduced the industrial age and so many different kinds of technologies, as well as economies of scale, the production line and specialization generally.
But even here, the obvious hides something deeper. Conservatives are concerned with equality and justice. They are also concerned about their rights as citizens. Conservatives are not the empathetic persons some might think. We do want our rights to be respected.
This starts off with being accountable for the costs we create. Biblically we look at the beam in our own eye.
We take up our cross at least partially in response to accepting our culpability in what is going wrong in our lives. We need to fist look to see what they can do to fix the problem, by changing the way they do things.
Taking up our cross is very much a part of taking responsibility for what part we played when things go wrong. We need to accept responsibility for problems. However, knowing this does not give us a clear response to the present situation.
Even if you are convinced the world, you are in is spiritually sick. Even if you are ready to take responsibility for your costs. Even if you want to be accountable and pay your own way and not be a burden to anyone, what can you do as an individual?
This is the problem the spiritually mature face every day until most just forget about moral right and wrong and immerse themselves in the culture.
Not even the sanest of persons can act sane if they live in an insane asylum.
With the insane there is no faith, they do not even believe their own senses or cognitive abilities.
Apriorian Apologetics is an apology to God. We explain with as much detail as possible why and how we failed. We feed the sheep. We tell the truth. We pay people for what they do and we produce real things.
Apriorian Apologists create clinics where we seek spiritual cleansing, identifying where we fall short and where the beam remains lodged in our eye.
We hold one another to account and ask how we could do better.
Our life is an apology. Our church is an applied apologetics.
The Apologetics Church is a lived-out apology to God; our cross is our apologetics. Indeed, ecumenicism is only possible when we are united by our apologetics.
Apologetics scientifically justifies faith by engaging in an apologetics that explains or lack of faith. We feed the sheep with scientific proof that there is in an infinite need to apologize for our lack of faith.
The first step in any apologetics is to look at where our behaviour signals a lack of faith. What is there in our life that causes people to doubt God or us or in our commitment to God.
All doubt is bad. All fear is bad. Apologists must find a reason to have faith. As we find reasons to have faith, we apologize for its lack.
The Spirit is seen by the world as energy. There are only two options tied to the Spirit. We can be imbued by the Spirit or we feed off it with adding anything to it.
To take up our cross is to take up a positive polarity to it. We conduct the energy of the Spirit, or we neutralize it.
There is the negative energy of apriosis and the positive energy of aprorian.
Negative energy makes us spiritually sick, and a positive polarity makes us productive. Our cross aligns us with the energy of the Spirit.
How deep is your conservatism? Is it a thing you put on for political discussion. Or does it go deeper than that? Conservatives build nations and when we build a nation it gives us rights over that nation. Conservative need to learn how to fight for the rights to control the nations we create.