"Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." ~ Luke 9:23
The Lord Jesus is in the middle of teaching His disciples about discipleship, not sonship. We are not saved from our sins because we take up a cross and follow Jesus, but because we trust that the Lord Jesus died on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. After we become children of God, then we become disciples. One is all about justification and the second is about sanctification.
Discipleship is a daily discipline: we learn to follow the Lord Jesus one a step at a time, and one a day at a time. Following the Lord Jesus requires self-denial, it is not about self-fulfillment. The idea that the Lord Jesus doesn't want us having any troubles or any problems, and our salvation is a guarantee of health, wealth, prosperity, and happiness, is just not consistent with His words. When our theology is God-centered and not man-centered, we will see this world as He does and we will fulfill our calling, transcendently, from the view of the heavenly realms.
Death of self yields losing and winning. In God's economy, we live by dying. According to His way of thinking and living, we are the living dying. Living to Him and dying to self is the epicenter of discipleship. When we say yes to the leading of His indwelling Spirit and say no to our flesh (sinful desires, no matter how altruistic they may be), we experience His life. In Ephesians we are told that we have been blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing. As we transcend and gain the view of the Lord Jesus, we will see that He uses all things in our lives for our good, even the bad.
Following the Lord Jesus will ultimately cost us absolutely everything of this world, but who is living for this world? This has nothing to do with being made right with God, we can't earn God's favor. This has everything to do with accessing the life that the Lord Jesus died to give us now. And, His life is transcendent and full of wisdom.
The gospels were written that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and that believing we might have life in His name. We unlock the kingdom, His rule in our lives, with the gospel. If we want to follow Him, we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. Oh, we can choose not to deny self, follow Him and take up our cross, but we will be miserable. That is if we are born again and in relationship with Him.
If, “The author of our salvation was made perfect through suffering,” so will we. When we experience His kingdom and His wisdom, we are dumb to turn away from Him. Again, we do not earn our salvation, but as we grow in His wisdom and our sanctification, we will see the stupidity of going in a way that is contrary to His.
In Matthew 7:13, the Lord Jesus said “Enter by the narrow gate.” The narrow gate is the Lord Jesus and it means salvation is constricted through Him. He is the only way to get into heaven. There is a wide gate, but it leads to destruction. That gate is the religious gate, and many go that way.
In Luke 9:23 we read, “Whoever wants to be my disciple.” It's not the one who says, "Lord, Lord." It's the one who has decided to follow Him and are being given the heart of the Father. This is the gospel. It's a gospel of His power, His love and His plan. He doesn't say, "You must deny things for yourself." That's not what He is saying. He is saying, "Don't make it about you. Don't live your life for you. Don't be selfish. Don't be self-centered. Deny yourself, deny you." It means, "Let me sit on the throne of your heart. Let me be your God."
Then, in Luke 9:23 we read, "Take up your cross." Every Jew hearing these words knew exactly what the Lord Jesus was talking about. The cross was an implement of death. Crucifixion probably started first with the Persians (modern day Iran). Alexander the Great (a Greek) introduced the practice to Carthage, where it was picked up by the Romans. The Romans started using it around the time the Lord Jesus was born.
The Romans perfected crucifixion as a punishment designed to maximize pain and suffering. It wasn't about killing somebody, it was about killing them in a really horrible way. Someone who was crucified suffered the maximum amount of pain.
Crucifixion was also the most disgraceful form of execution. It was usually reserved for slaves, foreigners, revolutionaries, and vile criminals. The only time a Roman citizen was ever crucified was for desertion from the army.
Now, "death" implies a new life, but we can't have the new life and live in the graveyard. A disciple is not someone who simply sets a new priority, a disciple finds a new identity. The mark of a disciple is his ability to hear the Master’s voice! The world screams at us, but the Lord Jesus whispers. Few hear His voice. Fewer still open the door. We must never interpret our numbness as His absence.
In v.24 the Lord Jesus uses the word "life." This is not the word for physical life. The Greek word for that is bios, from which we get our word biology. The Greek word that’s translated “life” here is psyche, meaning “self.”
He’s referencing our psychological self which is a part of our souls. You know that we are trichotomous beings, we are made of body, soul, and spirit. Our sanctification takes place in our souls. And in order for us to process in our sanctification, our old way of having an identity, of gaining a sense of self, has got to end. We have to die to it. It is then that the Lord Jesus can give us a whole new identity and view on life. This is a process the Bible calls sanctification.
