Title: The Cost of Following Christ
Scripture: Luke 9:23
Today’s text confronts every comfortable notion we cherish about discipleship. “If anyone would come after Me,” Jesus says, “let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” The Lord does not invite us to a life of ease but to a life of death—death to self, to autonomous living, to the throne of our own hearts. The cross is not a decorative ornament; it is an instrument of execution. Our Lord summons us to a daily dying.
Self-denial is not the same as self-improvement. It is not a spiritual diet plan that trims away a few bad habits. It is a radical renunciation of the right to rule our own lives. The old man, Paul tells us, must be crucified (Rom. 6:6). Every morning we rise, the flesh clamors for the throne. Every morning the Spirit bids us climb Calvary again and nail those pretensions to the wood. This is why the Christian life cannot be sustained by occasional enthusiasm; it requires daily execution.
Yet the cross is not only a place of death; it is also the doorway to resurrection joy. The same instrument that kills also liberates. When we deny ourselves, we are not left with nothing; we are left with Christ. In losing our life for His sake, we find it—refined, redirected, and flooded with meaning. The surrendered life is the only life that is truly free, because it is no longer held hostage by the tyranny of self.
Do not shrink back from this call, dear soul. The One who bids you carry the cross has already carried His—and He carries you. His yoke is easy and His burden is light, not because the path is painless, but because He walks it with you, strengthening you with grace sufficient for each day’s dying and each day’s rising.
Prayer: O Christ, grant me courage today to take up my cross gladly, to die to every self-willed desire, and to follow You in the path of obedient love. Let the nails that pierced Your hands pierce my pride, that I may rise with You in newness of life. Amen.
