Do You Have A Cross?

If you believe.

 

If you believe in Jesus Christ and accept Him as Your Savior you will not be conformed to the world.

 

If you pretend to believe in Jesus Christ, or are deceived into thinking you believe in Jesus Christ you will be conformed to the world. Your life will be no different from the lives of others. Your problems will be familiar to others, your joys will be similar to others, your lifestyle will fit in with the norm. You will be indistinguishable from the world in many ways. To know you would not be to know you are a Christ follower. You are conformed to the world. You are liked by many, celebrated by many, loved by many, the world has not rejected you at all. Or perhaps, the rejection of you is of the world in a secular manner. The world accepts a lot of pseudo-Christians because they are of the world conformed in enough ways so as not to upset the status quo.

 

We delude ourselves when we believe we can conform to the world and its standards- it's likes and dislikes- and still belong to Christ. We are living in a time when many call themselves Christ followers and because they are adhering to the standards of world-conformed believers and not Biblical God-standard believers they feel comfortable in their Christianity.

 

Jesus loved all but He had harsh words for many, harsh truths. Jesus never stopped loving all the while He condemned the sin in the sinners, wanting them to turn from the sin not live in it while proclaiming their false truth of belonging to God. Jesus told His followers they would need to take up their crosses and if possible live for Him only to die because they lived for Him. Jesus said that even if a person had everything in the world they ever wanted that it would mean absolutely nothing if that person didn't have Him. We are told that all material things in this life are temporary to eternity. You know darn well that if you died tomorrow that all of your earthly possessions mean nothing to you any longer. No possession you cherish will died with you, and even if someone else you love dies with you, when you're dead you are not with them. The sleep you enter is a solitary sleep. When the last trump sounds and the dead in Christ rise - only then will we be reunited with loved ones who are also raised in Christ. If we lose being in Christ we've lost everything and nothing else truly matters.

 

Following Christ means following Christ with our cross.

 

Do you have a cross?

 

Do you deny yourself?

 

Do you love the world and its possessions?

 

Daily cross bearing. Daily choosing. Daily self-denying. Daily following.

 

The cross of self-denial, of not living to selfish ends, but living for others.

 

Mat 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. 

Mat 16:25  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. 

Mat 16:26  For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? 

Mat 16:27  For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works

 

Joh 12:25  He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. 

Joh 12:26  If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour. 

 

Act 14:22  Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. 

 

2Co 4:8  We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 

2Co 4:9  Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; 

2Co 4:10  Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. 

2Co 4:11  For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. 

2Co 4:12  So then death worketh in us, but life in you. 

 

Mat 10:38  And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. 

Mat 10:39  He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. 

 

Mar 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. 

 

1Jn 2:15  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 

1Jn 2:16  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 

1Jn 2:17  And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.