Day 25 - The Call of the Cross

Luke 9:23-25 (ESV) - And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

(READ LUKE 9) 

Believers know that the Bible says we must be “crucified with Christ,” which means radical self-denial that leads to real life. But not many people can say that they were crucified as Christ.

Jim Caviezel can.

At the age of thirty-three, Caviezel played the role of Jesus in the massively popular and controversial film, The Passion of the Christ. The film has the most graphic and bloody imagery of the suffering of Jesus of any film ever made about the crucifixion. Jim Caviezel took on an acting role that was grueling, traumatizing, and emptying. But the “crucifixion” of Jim Caviezel came in the years following the film, as Hollywood shunned him for taking the role. When Mel Gibson offered the role to Caviezel, he told him his career would likely suffer. Caviezel’s response: “We all have a cross to carry. I have to carry my own cross. If we don’t carry our crosses, we are going to be crushed under the weight of it.” 

Jesus offers us everything we will ever need, but the way that happens is if we give up everything we ever wanted. That is the call of the cross. It looks like the worst bargain a person could experience, but it is in fact the single life transaction that leads to true prosperity and joy. 

Self-denial is the way to self-fulfillment. This is hard for us to understand, even harder to do, but is true. Being crucified with Christ is not about going through hardship. It is about choosing to give up control. And that is why it leads to life. Christ’s absolute lordship over our lives—pure, direct, powerful, unambiguous, sustained—is the only way our lives will be continually shaped by and filled by the grace and truth of Jesus. 

Malcolm Muggeridge, the British media personality and an adult convert to Christianity put it this way: “I can say that I never knew what joy was like until I gave up pursuing happiness, or cared to live until I chose to die. For these two discoveries I am beholden to Jesus.”

PONDER:  What parts of life are hardest for you to give up control over?

REFLECTION or DISCUSSION:
When people were sentenced to be crucified they carried their own crosses. Their focus shifted, and the little things no longer mattered. When we “take up our cross” we put our focus on the things that matter most to God. We desire to become more and more like him, and in that process, things that were once very important to us become less important as our call as his followers becomes more important. 

Read Luke 9:23-25. What are things that should be important to you if you want to be more like Jesus? What are things that might need to become less important to us as a family as we grow closer to God?