"Taking up your cross"

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 If you've grown up in church, or if you've been around Christians for long enough, you may have heard the phrase "carry your cross". This comes from the sixteenth chapter of Matthew, verse 24, which says: "Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me". 

Well, we come after Jesus, and we strive to be like Him! So what does that mean in terms of cross carrying?

Well, if you know anything about Jesus, you've probably heard about the crucifixion. It was the horrible way that our Savior had to die in order to justify us from sin. Most people know about the crown of thorns and the way he was nailed to the cross, but what some people don't know (people meaning me before I started pursuing faith) is that the Romans made Jesus carry the cross they were about to crucify Him on. He had been severely beaten, and had not had any food or water, and at one point it got so heavy that He could no longer bear the weight and Simon had to carry it the rest of the way. 

But Jesus is not the only man that was crucified. The Romans knew crucifixion well, and they used it liberally. Jesus spoke the words "take up [your] cross" before he was killed, but everyone knew what it meant. 

Once you were sentenced to death by crucifixion, and you picked up that cross, there was no coming back. It was a one way ticket. This is the way we are supposed to live. When you make the decision to follow Jesus, you become born again! You are a whole new person, and in order to truly follow Christ and stay that new person, you have to choose every day to cut off the person you were before and be the person that you are in Christ. 

Thankfully for us, this isn't a one chance sort of thing. We will inevitably fail, but that's why it's a choice everyday, every decision; of if we are going to be like Jesus, or if we are going to give in to our old self. 

So when you choose to carry your cross, you pick up the weight of who you used to be, and decide that your life is better if you give it up for Jesus. 

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