Self or Jesus Christ?

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.

We see in the above Scripture that Jesus is specifically talking to His disciples. If we have realized that we are sinners and asked God for His forgiveness and asked that Jesus Christ come in our hearts and change us, then we are His disciples, too. Let's look at what Jesus is telling us.

First of all, we see that any man (or woman) that chooses by his or her own will to go after Jesus, must deny himself. What exactly does this mean? It means we must deny the right to our self. We are giving our self rights back to God so that He can mold us into a new person that will be fit for His use. Not our own use. I know that sometimes (a lot of times) that I have the desire to do something for my God because of what He did for me, but does this necessarily mean that it is what God wants me to do? Not all the time it doesn't.

Let's look at what taking up our cross means. There are many today that have devoted themselves to causes for Christ or phase of truth, but Jesus never asked us to devote ourselves to a cause or creed. He only asks that we devote ourselves to Him, to sign away our rights to Him only and yield only to Him. This is our daily cross, to make sure that we do not take back our rights from Him to do what we will. We are crucified with Christ! If we allow Him to guide us daily, we have no fear of the "old man" returning.

We are living in a very fast-paced world. Everyone is so busy, busy, busy! As Christians we are to be a peculiar people. The world should be able to look at us and know something is different. We should allow Christ's Spirit to shine out of us daily. When things go wrong in our daily lives, how many of us take the time to pray about what's wrong and ask for His guidance?

Basically, we are to lose our identity and let Jesus Christ's identity shine through. Paul said in Galatians 2:20, I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

We must be broken to the Will of God, we cannot make ourselves be saints. We can only do this by willfully choosing the Cross of Christ and follow Him. When we follow someone, we do not make the decisions. Isn't this freeing? Isn't this wonderful liberty? We just follow Jesus!

God has instilled gifts in us and it is only for His Glory, not ours. I want so much to let Jesus have His Way with me, instead of me thinking I have to have my way for Him. Does this make sense? His Word will guide us, so it is vitally important that we be in His Word every single day. I have fallen in this area at times, haven't you? Let's encourage one another by posting a Scripture or two to review at least once a week. If each one of us takes a certain day to do this, we will be in the Word daily. Not that this should interfere with our closet time with God, but to have encouragement from each other.

I love all my sisters in Christ. May God bless you all!