“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.’” Matthew 16:24

 

It’s time to look at the cost

 

What does it take to be a follower of Jesus… not just to say we are Christians, but to actually follow Him?

 

Jesus says, “If anyone desires to come after Me.” He says that we have to want to. We have to make up our own minds that we want to follow. If we go to church and say we’re Christians just because that’s the way we’ve been raised, if we’ve never made the personal decision that I want to follow, then we are not really following. We are traditionalizing. We are making a tradition out of the way we were brought up. Jesus is speaking of real Christians here, not just “by name only” Christians.

 

Next Jesus says that we must deny ourselves. We have to stop being driven by our own motives and look to the leading of Jesus in our lives. Life will have its moments of “walking on water” or “anguishing in Gethsemane,” but whichever type of moment it is, we will get to it, get through it, and get past it because Jesus led us.

 

Not only must we stop living in a self-motivated way and start living in a Christ-motivated way, but we must “take up [our] cross.” It literally is “our cross”… my cross! No one else has the same one we do. We each will have different things in life to bear. When we say we follow Christ and we get to some of those “Gethsemane” moments, as true followers, we will be willing to go through those tough times and not “ditch our cross” and run to an easier way.

 

 Now, when we have done all that, 1) made up my own mind that I want to follow, 2) stopped being self-motivated and choosing to be Christ-motivated, and 3) decided that I will stick with it no matter what, then AND ONLY THEN, can we be true followers of Jesus. We can follow the leadership of Christ freely, because we now have no agendas or expectations of our own—we are simply following.

 

It takes some genuine soul searching to see if we really want to be a Christian, a true follower of Christ. It’s not something to say lightly. The truth is, we really are or we really aren’t; there’s no in between. Looking like or acting like or even saying we are, doesn’t make us a Christian. Jesus said it takes desire, denial and determination. Paul went so far as saying that if our Christianity is only for this life, if it’s just a lifestyle, we are the most pitiable of all mankind. So how about it? Do we want to play at Christianity or do we want to REALLY FOLLOW JESUS?

 

Reminder: A true follower of Jesus has to have the “want to” and the “will to.”