“Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any one come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for me will find it”
Matthew 16:24-25
This is a verse is at the heart of what it means to be true disciple of Jeus Christ and what it means to walk and live in the Spirit
Watchman Nee has a very good definition of what it means to take up our cross.
‘What is meant by taking up the cross? It is submitting to God from the heart. In the Garden of Gethsemane our had His mind set on doing the Fathers will. The result was that He went from there to take up the cross. Taking up the cross means being determined to do Gods will and nothing else.’
Its very much tied in with obedience. It says Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered. Do we think it will be any different for us. It’s a dying to our will, our way and submitting to His will. In Isaiah 50 it gives a Messinic prophecy of how Jesus lived.
“The sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He awakens me morning by morning wakens my ear to listen like one been taught. The sovereign Lord has opened my ears and I have not been rebellious I have not drawn back.”
Our Cross is dying to self and submission to His will. Our soul, our emotions our will have to come to the cross of obedience and die. That’s true discipleship.