Funeral for Friends: Day 1
Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).
The call to be a disciple is not a call to luxury, painlessness, or prestige; rather, it is a call to die—a mortal wound to self. Christ invites us to come and die to our own desires.
This mortal wound affects our wants, dreams, and aspirations. What we receive in return is a life that follows Christ—one filled with His desires, dreams, and aspirations, which come with eternal rewards. It is a life where selfish ambitions and vain conceit are set aside (Philippians 2:3). Our desires for personal pleasure diminish (James 4:3), and our own interests take a back seat.
To “deny” means to refuse or to not grant. We must deny or stop feeding the flesh. When the mortal gives way to the eternal, God helps us recognize what is mortal so we can deny it, refusing to feed it until it is rendered dead (Romans 12:1-2).
Consider what feeds your flesh. Take a moment to meditate on this question and perhaps write down your thoughts. Examples might include comfort, prestige, power, money, sex, gossip, and attention.
Denying means taking these things captive and submitting them to the Lord so that He can bring them to death (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Deny self—follow Christ. We follow Christ in obedience to His Spirit. The struggle we face comes from the suffocation and denial of the flesh as it fights for life. The refreshment we experience comes from our obedience to the Lord and our conformity to His image.
Each day, we have a choice between life in Christ or death. Life in Christ comes at the cost of self. Choose this day whom you will follow (Joshua 24:15).
Philippians 2:5-8 reminds us of our calling, while John 8:50 illustrates how we are called to emulate Christ. Daily dying to self glorifies God and is our reasonable act of worship. When asked how we can give God glory, it is by denying self and choosing God (Romans 12:1-2).
By choosing to deny ourselves, we become instruments of the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-20). We deny self to follow Christ, walking with God wherever He leads us. In His presence, we find the fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11).
want this.
inspired by David Nasser a call to die
The hardest person in the world to say no to is yourself and Jesus’s teaches His disciples in Matthew 16. Whoever wants to be, my disciple must deny themselves. That’s only part of the verse but I want to focus on that idea of self-denial. I think its renouncing the priority of self to deny self is to leave behind the selfishness and self-centered thinking for the sake of Jesus. That’s is so hard at times….There’s a self that needs to be denied that is the self driven by desires and wants and attraction and impulses. The self that in every circumstance and relationship thinks… I or Me ,self that wants to sit on the throne making my self Like God..But by the spirit of God we’ve been given a capacity to say no to self which leads to more joy in life. Daily surrender and sacrificial thinking and living in a way to die to one’s self. That’s what it means to take up ones cross.Remember Jesus denied self for you and for me for the sake of the world and every day we have the Countless opportunities to remember that truth and out of love and gratitude follow his example.There is undoubtedly accost to following Jesus to pick up your cross. Is a sign of total self-denial and at times. It might cost you a personal Dream, ambition or goal. There is and will be a cost to following in the way of Jesus. It’ll look different at different moments of life’s journey. But Jesus, Says there is a greater cost not to follow. Beyond the importance of self, there’s true happiness. True, joy. True peace, true love true contentment and fulfillment in intimacy with Jesus.
My verse of the day was Galatians 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
I find that the more time I spend with God’s people doing work that glorifies His makes it much easier to ignore any desire of the flesh.
Matthew 16:24
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” (KJV)
In this I see four key points:
1. will come after me
2. deny himself
3. take up his cross
4. follow Jesus
1. “will come after me”
In the interlinear the Greek reads “if anyone desires after me to come”. Here I notice the word “will” from the KJV is translated from the word “desire”. Looking further into this, Strongs #2309 shows this word as “to determine, impulse (denotes a passive acceptance), wish, to be inclined to (sometimes gladly), desire, will”. This would have me understand there is an eagerness to follow Jesus because we might believe that to be the best for us. In being on this side of the cross we might be eager to follow Jesus for many reasons, because there are miracles to see, that you might be able to walk on water, or see one raised from the dead, that you might know someone who does these things or do them yourself.
Yet Jesus would say in Luke 10:20, not to rejoice in this but rather that your name is written in heaven. Personally, I remember at camp when I was 12 hearing a preacher-man talk about salvation saying in prayer “God, if this is real, I want it”. I did not then, nor do I now, fully understand what I was asking for. I went from a somewhat Pharisaical stance against drug use (“how dare you!”) to using drugs for about 10 years. Praise God that He saw fit to pull me from this and change my position and restore me back to Himself. I now have compassion towards those who have struggled with drug use, either simply to escape life, or because they are chasing something spiritual, I know there is always a core desire that drove the seeking for more and more.
In desiring to follow Jesus, we might have selfish intent that needs to be identified, even the perspective of “I’m going to give my life to avoid pain” or “I want others to see me as holy” or even “I could have power”. There may even be a rare few who initially understand in fullness that Jesus is the Son of the Living God and because of this what other choice do you have but to follow Him.
However, following something or someone you were not before means a change of direction (repent, turn away from).
2. “deny himself”
Strongs #533 has “deny” defined as “deny utterly, disown, abstain.” There is a need to disown your own identity. The phrase “I once was ____, but God…” comes to mind. I imagine the disciples following Jesus, they gave up their identity (as a fisherman, a tax collector, doctor, etc.) to be identified as “one who follows Jesus” and all this before miracles and before His resurrection. There were many others who also wanted to follow Jesus and many did, but some (like that rich man) thought the cost too great.
To not be seen as a software developer first, or a wise man first, or even a husband first, but as a follower of Christ first that He is always on my lips so much that praising His name rather than boasting in self accomplishment is first.
The “I” is a nobody when compared to Christ. I am a nobody. And not in a sense of “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” but in the sense of “I am insignificant. I would not exist if it weren’t for Jesus. If not for Him, I would be drugged out individual exalting self gratification at the expense of others selfishly and angry about not getting my own way. Everything good I have in my life is because of Him and I owe everything, even my own life to Him. And even to say “I have” something good is invalid because I want to say “no father, I give this back to you because even the good distracts me from you.” The gifts He gives then become sacrifices to the Most High God. For I am nothing without Him, but with Him and in Him I have everything.
3. “take up the cross”
Here there are two entries that are of interest: “take up” and “cross”. The Greek has one word for “let him take up” and this mostly is as we would understand it being to “carry, lift up” but it also means “bear up” and “remove”. In context of the cross, I find it interesting the idea of taking up the cross meaning not only to carry the cross, but to bear the burden of the cross. Another use of the word in Greek is to “set sail, or weigh anchor” which could be said that we would remove the anchoring we have to the earth when we take up the cross. Thinking about the spiritual reality while simultaneously being tethered to the earth can sometimes feel like an anchor that we must take up.
The cross or “his cross” points to the Roman crucification, but Strong’s #4716 adds some interesting details to this more than “softened” torture device of 2000ish years ago. Strong’s states that figuratively this could be used to say “exposure to death; for example, self-denial”. This could be denying one’s self the comforts of modern living to go on missions, risking imprisonment or losing a job, or also risking getting ridiculed for speaking about Jesus in public.
Given both of these understandings, it could be restated that we are to ‘bear the weight of denying ourself.’ Jesus certainly bore the weight of denying self. How else can one explain that He was beaten to an inch of His life and remain silent or even nails through your hands and feet without saying a word in protest? (Luke 23:9, Isaiah 53:7-10) It’s easy to say “but He is God,” yet He was also completely human with human emotions, mind, and a nervous system. Denying the burden carried by Jesus in that moment is to deny the truth of being fully human and capable to understand our needs. (Hebrews 4:15)
4. “follow Jesus”
There’s not much insight the Greek definitions illustrate here in which English is not also helpful. When I think of “to follow”, I typically think of walking behind someone in a line. Another notion of the definition which articulates a good point is “to be in the same way”, which is in the same manner but “same way” has me thinking there is so much more. The same way He cared for His friends. The same way He spent time with the Father. The same way He taught. The same way He gave Himself in obedience of the Father’s will.
So, to answer the question what is meant by the verse Matthew 16:24 is to turn from the direction we were going in order to walk in the manner of the Messiah which will include rejecting our inclination toward self preservation and embrace the notion that we too may have to endure the uncomfortable, even to the point of death, to do the will of the Father and share the Good News of salvation with others.