Jesus said to the crowd that began following Him, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24, Luke 14:25-27). What do these instructions regarding discipleship involve? Why would believers follow them?
Many people in the church are following the crowd, not following Jesus. Maybe they feel like they’re doing the right thing. Or they find some comfort for a little while in their religion. Or they enjoy the social aspects of community. Jesus is telling the crowd that He is looking for an active comittment to Him.
Some in the church may quit smoking, swearing, and drinking alcohol. But they don’t go on to the third step of following Jesus. So they don’t change much on the inside. The Lord may be referring to them in the Parable of the Sower as when the word of the kingdom is sown among thorns, the word is choked off by their cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches, and the word and their lives become unfruitful. Their ties to the world remained unchanged.
But those who read the word day by day are guided in what changes to make to their lives, and follow through. They deny themselves; they cut off those external ties to the world that keep them from being transformed by the renewing of their minds.
As the Spirit leads them against the internal works of the flesh (Romans 8:13) that resist God, they bear their cross to stand against themselves and their desires. Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its lusts and desires (Galatians 5:24).
They are bringing their stormy thoughts into conformity to the servant-obedient mind of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). They are sowing to the Spirit more than to the flesh (Galatians 6:7-8). They are understanding the word of the kingdom that was sown, accepting it, and keeping it, and developing kingdom fruit (Matthew 13:23, Mark 4:20, Luke 8:15).
Jesus referred to this process in Matthew 11:28-30: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And how are we to come to Him and find that rest? He says to take His yoke on you (v. 29). The yoke is an agricultural instrument laid on the strong necks of the bulls that are used to pull the plow (cattle pulling plow). The younger bull in training would be yoked to the stronger bull and is pulled along until it stops resisting and plods step by step with the stronger one.
Jesus next says, “Learn from Me.” The work of the yoke is to see all the resistance we have to following Jesus wholeheartedly, and we start to deny ourselves and take up our cross to follow Him better. This we learn from Jesus and not from other sources. But that’s not enough. Jesus wants us to know Him and His character, “I am gentle and lowly in heart” (v. 29). By this He gives us purpose and direction in our denying ourselves and carrying our cross: it’s to be like Him. Whatever is not like Him—that’s what goes. Whatever prevents growth into Him is what we cut off, and whatever the word says is like Him we start adding in as new ways of thinking and new ways of practicing the presence of God as Jesus did.
Then one enters into rest to the soul (v. 30). With all the denying of self and carrying the cross, you are cutting off all ties to the world that disturb you, and counting dead the works of the flesh that Christ destroyed long ago when He said “It is finished,” and following Him with the sense of the Spirit holding you up, keeping you strong to push through, and weathering the storms of life with the mature character of Christ.
The process above is what Jesus meant when He said, “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:35). What is your life but that of preferences and routines and comfort zones that you have perfected? This life needs to match up with the life Jesus advised in John 3:8, where the wind of the Spirit blows where it wishes and the disciple finds his life moved here and there unexpectedly, then later expectantly.
The process above will come into play when we truly follow Jesus’ earnest plea to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). When we do not seek God’s kingdom, of letting Jesus as King control every facet of our lives, we are like old wine skins that would break with the infusion of the new wine (Matthew 9:17). Because we do follow the ways of the kingdom, we are made new and can retain the wine of kingdom living.
The process above is what Jesus meant when He tells us in John 14:21, “He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” When we are faithfully reading the word and carrying out the commands there, we are following Jesus as Lord. But when we don’t let the word renew our minds, we are thinking our own thoughts and making decisions for ourselves, and we are following the flesh as lord.
When we do follow the kingdom word and our lives change, He will manifest Himself to us—as gentle and lowly; and as we take on His character when we learn of Him and act like Him in the kingdom, we find that we have a familiarity with Him because we are walking in His shoes. We are doing life His way and not our way.
The process above is how we bridge the wide gap between the two halves of John 10:10, to glide from death to abundant life, and also to bypass the wide gate that leads to destruction to traverse the narrow way that leads to life (Matthew 7:13-14).
This is the life of the disciple. He pays attention to the kingdom values the Lord wants to establish in him, and as a result his house is established on the rock, and the storms blow and the rains pound and cannot shake that house (Matthew 7:24-27).
This is the life of the disciple. It’s the place where true biblical faith comes into play, releasing grace upon grace, and all the promises you’ve marked in your Bibles finally come into reach as they are needed.
This is the life of the disciple, for it is the life of the Spirit of Christ pulsing in you. This is the life you’ve always wanted, for you are becoming an image-bearer of Christ, a light of the world that brings glory to God.
You called Him Savior. Now it’s time to call Him Lord, and let Him lead you into a fuller life.
