The Walking Dead - Daily Devo 3

Daily Dying Devotion No. 3: HARD WORDS AND HEAVY LOADS

Our main Scripture: Luke 9:18-27 

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, TAKE-UP HIS CROSS DAILY and follow-me."

*Jesus doesn't want to change you, he wants to kill you.*

That's a pretty heavy statement, I realize, but it's the best way to understand how radically Jesus wants to alter who you are.

He tells the disciples, (and us) that if we want to be called a Christ-follower, every day, we need to "take-up our cross". We can be tempted to think that means we have to deal with some discomfort or some minor irritation as part of our faith. (As a child, when I would cause trouble, my mother would say that I was "her cross":)

But the cross wasn't just a cool t-shirt symbol or piece of jewelry. It was an instrument of death. It was a form of execution; a very brutal and popular one in the day.

So to those hearing Jesus' words, they understood just how much he was asking. He was asking everything. Not only was he asking them to die, but to participate by carrying the method; to willingly give it up.

Most people (teenagers especially), think that they can have their "Sunday" or "youth group lives", and then their "other" real lives (school, dating, friends, home). But that's too easy.

Faith in Christ means that you wake-up every single day and ask, "What needs to die, so that Christ can live?" What in my heart needs to die? Which of behaviors needs to die? (What on my Facebook page needs to die?:)

Maybe you've been living a "Christianity-light" lately; just giving an hour here, or a prayer there. Maybe that also why things seem so difficult, or why you are not sensing God's presence.

Jesus teaches us with his life that the cross is the way we really live. He shows us that when we surrender everything, that something else is given to us.

This faith thing should not be easy, friends. It cannot be easy. If it is, you probably aren't quite invested yet. If it is easy, you probably want Jesus's life and your life at the same time, but that isn't possible. 

Today, put down your agenda, your plans, your preferences, and pick-up a cross, and see what He does.