Scripture of The Day
Then he said to them all: If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. (Luke 9:23)
Jesus was speaking in Luke 9:23 and He was not talking about a cross to hang around your neck so people might think you’re a Christian. No, He was talking about the cross that he took up and was crucified on. The cross Jesus was referring to was how death sentences were carried out in the time of Jesus. The cross is an instrument of death. In more modern times He may have said take up your hangman’s noose, or take up your electric chair, or take up your lethal injection and follow me. In other words, he was saying follow me in death. He wasn’t talking about physical death. He was talking about spiritual death.
Romans 6:8 says, “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,” Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” We had to die (to the old sinful nature) with Christ in order to be born again (in Christ where all things are made new).
When you are dead to sin nothing should affect you. It would be like cursing at or spitting in the face of a corpse. It wouldn’t say or do anything to you. It would just lay there and be dead. That’s how we as the Body of Christ need to be with sin, dead to it, with our lives hidden in Christ Jesus.
Don’t just act like a Christian on the outside by wearing a cross on a necklace. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with wearing a cross necklace. But if you really want to represent Jesus Christ, stay dead to sin, and alive unto God.
Don’t just play dead!
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