Jesus said:
Matthew 16:24 (NKJV)
If anyone desires to come after Me,
let him deny himself,
and take up his cross, and follow Me.
But what does that really mean “Take up your cross and follow me”?
How do you do that and where do we go?
Yes, following Jesus. …but where is He going?
The Bible shows how you are changed from the inside out, when you come to understand and believe what God says about you.
Therefore, everything described in the Bible does not happen somewhere in the world, but within you.
Because when you become beautiful on the inside, then the outside, how you behave, automatically becomes beautiful too.
Jesus also explained this to the Pharisees.
He said:
Matthew 23:25-26 (NIV)
You clean the outside of the cup and dish,
but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish,
and then the outside also will be clean.
So the cleansing process happens from the inside out.
Your inside is your identity and your outside is your behavior.
You behave according to who you think you are.
So your behavior stems from your identity.
Where do you derive your identity from?
From what others say about you?
Or from what you have accomplished in your life?
Jesus shows you your true identity.
1 John 4:17 (NKJV)
Because as He is, so are we in this world!
He shows you who you really are; a son of God, in His image and in His likeness.
When you begin to see and believe that, your inside will be cleansed and you have found your true identity as a son of God.
As a result, your outside will automatically be cleansed as well, and you will start behaving more and more like a son of God.
The words of Jesus “take up your cross and follow Me” is therefore something that must happen within you so that you discover your true identity and change from the old man to the new man.
This process could be divided into 6 steps.
1.
Step one is where everyone begins, which is life from the flesh.
First, we live in the flesh. For everyone is born of Adam, in his image and likeness.
Genesis 1:27 (NKJV)
God created man in His own image
in the image of God He created him.
But Adam mixes the wisdom that comes from the flesh, earthly wisdom, with the wisdom of God.
We see this image in the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Eve eats from that tree first.
Genesis 3:6 (NIV)
She saw that the fruit of the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom.
Immediately afterwards, she passes on this earthly wisdom to her husband Adam, and he too takes this wisdom upon himself. Later, when Adam and Eve have children, they pass on this earthly wisdom, which comes from the flesh, to their children.
For…
Genesis 5:3 (NIV)
When Adam had lived 130 years,
he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image.
We were all born of Adam, in his image and likeness, raised in the earthly wisdom he passed on to us.
Therefore, we must be born again by no longer mixing the truth of God’s Word, His Wisdom, with earthly wisdom.
1 Peter 1:22-23 (BSB)
Since you have purified your souls by obedience to the truth
so that you have a genuine love for your brothers,
love one another deeply, from a pure heart.
For you have been born again,
not of perishable seed, but of imperishable,
through the living and enduring word of God.
2.
Now we can move on to step 2.
In this step we will actually take up our cross and follow Jesus.
But where are we going? ….yes, we are following Jesus, but where is He going?
Jesus came to show who God is, our Father. (John 14:9)
Jesus shows us what the life of a son of God looks like and what the end goal of that life is.
Exactly what that end goal is, we will discover in the final step, step 6.
Jesus physically showed your true identity as a son of God here on earth 2,000 years ago.
Now His Spirit lives within you to take you where He is.
This is not a physical place, but your identity.
This is why Jesus prays while He is still on earth:
John 17:24 (NIV)
Father, I want those you have given me
to be with me where I am.
The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, brings us to that place. (Romans 8:9)
That is following Jesus.
And where did Jesus go when He took up His cross?
To Calvary.
That’s where we go when we take up our cross and follow Jesus.
In step 1, we decide to fully believe what God says and not mix it with what we think.
In step 2, we take up our cross and follow Jesus to Calvary.
In Matthew 16 we see this described very clearly.
Jesus said…
Matthew 16:21 (BSB)
…that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things
and that He must be killed
and on the third day be raised to life.
This is the will of God. It is God’s Word, Divine wisdom.
But Peter immediately speaks his thoughts that come from the flesh and says:
Matthew 16:22 (BSB)
Far be it from You, Lord! This shall never happen to You!
Jesus rebukes this earthly wisdom by saying to Peter:
Matthew 16:23 (BSB)
Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me.
For you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.
Jesus goes straight to step 2 and says:
Matthew 16:24 (BSB)
If anyone wants to come after Me,
he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.
Now that we have taken up our cross and followed Jesus to Calvary, we come to step 3.
3.
Here, on Calvary, we see the inexhaustible love and grace of God.
Here we see that we do not have to be nailed to the cross ourselves, but that Jesus did it for us.
He went to the cross as you.
Because…
Romans 6:6 (NIV)
For we know that our old self was crucified with Him
so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with.
There on that cross the old man died.
That old man is the identity of Adam that we have taken upon ourselves.
This identity must be renewed to the identity God gave us when He made us.
That is why Jesus is also called the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45).
After Him, no more Adam.
Adam, the flesh and everything coming from it, was nailed to the cross.
We had taken up our cross and followed Jesus.
Here on Calvary, we can drop our cross again.
We can leave everything at the cross, all our worries, our pain and our sorrow.
We may drop this heavy cross and take upon ourselves the teaching, the doctrine, of Jesus.
Jesus calls this teaching a yoke. But unlike the heavy cross, this yoke is easy to bear.
Mattheüs 11:29 (NIV)
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
4.
We followed Jesus to Calvary where you were able to see with your own eyes that you yourself do not have to be on that cross, but that He loves you so much that He died for you.
So we have followed Him in His death and must now follow Him in His burial.
Romans 6:3 (NIV)
Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death.
What happened in the natural 2000 years ago must now take place within you.
We find a brilliant picture of this in the story of Joseph of Arimathea.
This Joseph had a tomb made for himself so that his body could be laid in it after he died.
But….
Mattheüs 27:59-60 (NAS)
Joseph took the body of Jesus and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,
and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut out in the rock.
The tomb was meant for Joseph, but Jesus took His place.
When you are buried with Him by baptism into death,
it means that Jesus is buried as you.
He has taken your place.
The tomb that was meant for you is filled with the body of Jesus.
That is where the last Adam was buried.
5.
Romans 6:4 (NIV)
Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death,
that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
even so we also should walk in newness of life.
This is step 5.
Your old man, Adam, has been buried and you have risen as a completely new man.
Now it has begun, the new life. You have been made completely new.
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation
old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
You had come to follow Jesus and you saw that He did everything for you.
You don’t have to do anything, you are!
You are in Christ. You are a new creation. You are a son of God!
You are in His image and His likeness. You are loved.
This is the promised land.
But this is not the end of the journey.
We continue to follow Jesus because there are still some enemies to be destroyed.
But here again we see that we do not have to do that ourselves, but that God does it for us.
For instance, look at the story of the Israelites when they had just entered the Promised Land.
This story is a shadow image of what must happen within you now.
Joshua went out before the people of Israel.
All the people followed him through the promised land (Joshua 1:1-18).
This Joshua is a shadow image of Jesus.
They even have the same name: Jehoshua (יהושׁוע) “YHWH brings salvation.”
Jehoshua goes before you and defeats all the enemies in the land.
This land is your heart and the enemies are sacred cows.
Those enemies are unbelief.
It is the knowledge of good and evil,
earthly wisdom that comes from the flesh
So the promised land is not conquered by living well.
Living well is a consequence of the conquering of the land.
The land is conquered by counting yourself dead to sin.
That you have been buried with Christ and risen with Him in a new life.
You don’t have to do anything, you are!
Following Jesus happens within you. He leads you to the Truth of what God says.
John 16:13 (NKJV)
the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth.
And when you are firmly rooted in that truth, you arrive at step 6.
6.
You have crossed and conquered all the land.
You followed Jesus in His death and resurrection.
And…
Mark 16:16 (NIV)
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.
Not baptized with water, but baptized into the death of Jesus.
And risen with Him into a new life.
Romans 6:5 (NAS)
For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death,
certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.
Even in this new life you continued to follow Jesus and conquered the Promised Land.
But even now you must continue to follow Him!
And where did Jesus go after He rose from the dead?
Mark 16:19 (NIV)
He was taken up into heaven
and He sat at the right hand of God.
He has overcome and became King over the land.
He rules together with God.
But you have followed Him every step of the way and have also overcome.
And Jesus says:
Revelation 3:21 (NKJV)
To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne,
as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
You had gone after Jesus into the Promised Land and continued to follow Him.
In His strength, you overcame all the enemies in the land.
Now the land is yours ➡ you have become king over the earth.
Or in other words, you have become king over all that is earthly.
You rule over all that is earthly, all that comes from the flesh.
It’s Jesus Who….
Revelation 1:6 (NKJV)
…has made us kings and priests to His God and Father,
to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever.
- We all begin by living from the flesh.
- But at some point we have to take up our cross and follow Jesus to Calvary.
- At Calvary, you discover that jesus has taken your place on the cross and you no longer have to die
- Then you are buried with Him
- and rise with Him in a new life as a completely new creation.
- Ultimately, the end goal is that we follow Him to His throne.
I pray that you will take up your cross and follow Him….
Ephesians 4:13+15 (NKJV)
…till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ
that we, speaking the truth in love,
may grow up in all things into Him who is the head: Christ
1 Timothy 1:17 (KJV)
Now unto the King eternal,
immortal, invisible, the only wise God,
be honour and glory for ever and ever.
Amen.
