Hopped over here from the Rebelution, and enjoyed the look around. Great post on the cross! I find it fascinating every time I try to wrap my mind around the centrality of the cross–for God’s glory–so that He might be both just and justifier. I came across Isaiah 59:15-16 yesterday, “Now Yahweh saw, and it was displeasing in His sight that there was no justice, And he saw that there was no man, and was astonished that there was no one to intercede, Then His own arm brought salvation, And His righteousness upheld Him.” It DOES seem foolish to the world not to be able to save themselves, but to anyone whose eyes are opened to their own helplessness, only the cross CAN save them!

Good words. Blessings, brother.

“‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.’ Luke 9:23
We might naturally have thought that if there was one thing in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ which belonged to Him alone, it was His Cross-bearing. To guard against so natural a mistake, the Holy Ghost has taken care in gospel and in epistle to draw our special attention to the oneness of the believer with Christ in cross-bearing; and also to prevent misunderstanding as to the character of Christian cross-bearing, and the constancy of its obligation. The Lord Jesus, in the words we are considering, teaches us that if any man, no matter who he may be, will be His disciple, he must — not he may — deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow his Lord.
Is there not a needs-be for this exhortation? Are not self-indulgence and self-assertion temptations to which we are ever exposed, and to which we constantly give way, without even a thought of the un-Christliness of such conduct? That we owe something to God all Christians admit; and it may be hoped that the number of those is increasing who recognize His claim to some proportionate part of their income. But our Master claims much more than a part of our property, of our time, of our affections. If we are saved at all, we are not our own in any sense, we are bought with a price; our bodies we must present to Him; our whole life must be for God.
Self-denial surely means something far greater than some slight insignificant lessening of our self-indulgences! When Peter denied Christ, he utterly disowned Him and disallowed His claims. In this way we are called to deny self, and to do it daily, if we would be Christ’s disciples indeed. ‘I don’t like this,’ or, ‘I do like that,’ must not be allowed; the only question daily must be, What would Jesus like? And His mind and will, once ascertained, must unhesitatingly be carried out.
As believers, we claim to have been crucified together with Christ, and Paul understood this, not merely imputatively but practically. That cross put the world to death as regards Paul, and put Paul to death as regards the world. To the Apostle nothing could have been more practical. He does not say, “I take up my cross daily,” in the light, modern sense of the expression; but puts it rather as dying daily; and therefore, as one ‘in deaths oft,’ he was never surprised, or stumbled, by any hardship or danger involved in his work.”

May we so follow in His Footsteps that the world will have no doubt as to Who we serve, Who we Love, and Who deserves all the glory, honor and praise.

Amen.