In Matthew 16:24, ‘Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”’ With this verse, here are the three things Jesus ask his followers to do.
1. Give yourself to Jesus
Giving yourself up to Jesus does not mean you have to give up your all your possessions. It just means that one’s desire should be concentrated in following God’s will even if we sometimes conflict with God’s Word. Jesus hopes that we think of God first, then we think of others next. It is just like Jesus’ answer when He was asked about the most important commandment. When we give ourselves up to the Lord and give up our own thoughts, we can focus on Jesus and avoid thinking about ourselves. When we are in the dark and find ourselves in a hopeless situation, we can look to God and turn to His Gospel for inspiration. We need to depend on Him who gives us our strength and believe that He can do everything.
2. Take your cross
Jesus encourages us to take our own cross and it is His mission and His Work. Matthew 10:38 reads: ‘Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.’ Jesus hopes that we could spread the Gospel to others just like salt and light in the world. We need to be an ambassador and let people see Christ in us. We need to be the testimonial proof of the importance of the Gospel and carry the cross with us. We should also love those who are not lovely, forgive those who are not worthy of forgiveness. We need to keep passing on God’s grace and take in the responsibility of telling people to build a good relationship with Jesus Christ.
3. Follow Jesus
It is easy to say that we will follow Jesus, but it is not very easy to do it all the time. What does a true follower do? It could be a lot, but a few of us can do it very well even in the end. Some of us even become like the Pharisees. Jesus said “Follow me”, but here, He means that we should only follow His teaching or follow His laws. It means we should follow Him all the time throughout our lives. It is a very important part that one must not forget when becoming His followers. In fact, following Jesus means we becomes His followers.
So we are now on the way to become Jesus’ followers. Where are you now in these steps? Please remember, Jesus has been calling us to follow Him for a long time already.
