Living In Christ

IT IS appalling to hear sermons from the pulpit telling the people that they have to keep suffering for Christ's sake. Reinforced with misquoted Bible verses, they persuade people that sickness, sorrows, and poverty are all the “proofs” of a true Christian life. If so, who wants to become one?

I grew up hearing teachings that as a believer in Jesus Christ, I should just endure the sufferings and hardships because they are all essential parts of my testimony as a Christian. And I thought that it was so.

They would often quote this verse in Luke 9:23 “Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily,and follow Me.”

And by “take up his cross”, they would interpret it as saying “If Jesus took up His cross, we must also take up ours in the form of sufferings in life, hardships, sorrows, and poverty”. The imagery of the cross pictures in them a form of burden or a yoke. It can also mean any suffering or pain, because as they falsely believe, “If there is no pain, there is no gain”.

But as I read the Bible many years after, I found out that this is a total non-sense.

If Christians are supposed to be sick all their lives, how are they going to be a testimony to others? If Christians are always borrowing money out of poverty, how can they be a blessing to others? And if Christians are supposed to be always under hardships, how are they going to reign in life?

Taking Up the Cross

So what does it mean to “take up our cross and follow Him?” Why did Jesus take up the cross? Did it end by just taking up the cross?

When someone takes up his cross, this would mean that he is going to die soon after. The cross is not a pleasant object to carry, nor is it a good place to die. Besides the fact that it is so heavy while being transported on the person's back, he also suffers a slow and agonizing death – something that only the heinous criminals are sentenced to.

Neither was it a pleasant experience to Jesus. He was not happy that He was about to be crucified. The night before He was arrested, He sweat blood (Luke 22:44). The thought alone of being cut-off from the Father after bearing the sin of the world and the agonizing suffering that He knew He would need to go through were both boulders that He needed to hurdle. 

Nevertheless, He saw you and me, and the joy awaiting. He went His way, carried the cross and died. But thank God He did not stop there! He rose again after 3 days and ascended to the Father as our Great High Priest (Hebrews 12:2)

So, am I saying that we all have to die first before we could even follow Christ? Am I saying that we must all go to the cliff and throw ourselves down? How then can we follow when we are already in the grave? How can we be a blessing to others if we are already 6 feet below the ground?

I Have Been Crucified With Christ

To pick up our cross daily means to die from our old selves and be resurrected in the newness of the Spirit (Romans 7:6). Unless we are born again in the spirit, we can never be in union with Christ (John 3:3). And if we are not in Christ, we are still dead in our sins (Ephesians 2:5). And if we are still dead in our sins, there is only one place that we are headed to -hell (Matthew 25:46).

How do we die from our old self? How do we identify with His death and resurrection? By confessing with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believing in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9). This is how we are saved and this is how we  identify ourselves with His death at the cross.

Simply put it this way: Jesus died our death so that in Him we can have life. His death was our death and His resurrection was our resurrection too!

If that's not enough, Paul makes it very clear for us in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

The Need to Die From Our Old Self

In our flesh dwells no good thing (Romans 7:18). This flesh is filled with a sinful nature which tends to do exactly the opposite of what the Spirit wants. The flesh in us stirs up rebellion against God's will.

Thus, the only way to overcome it is to die from it and live again in Christ through the Spirit. This is not to say that once you become a Christian, you will never commit sin. No, not at all. But that you will have newness in the Spirit who will help you walk victorious over every temptation. And if you should fall, the same Spirit picks you up and restores you.

The Bible also says about walking in the Spirit in Romans 8:5 “Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.”

One Thing to Suffer

However, there is one suffering that Christians will have to bear: persecution for believing in Him.

In John 15:18, He said "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.” And this is all that we are to suffer: persecution for believing in His Name. Other than that, every believer is meant to reign in life (Romans 5:17).

Yet even in this said persecution, His grace is always sufficient for us (2 Corinthians 12:19). He will never leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6). He will be with us even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). And if God is for us, who can stand against us? (Romans 8:31)