Anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. Jesus.

In this life there are two principles that are so basic but powerful, in fact the world was based and ran by these two principles. Those principles are surrender and relationship. You can see these principles always color the life of Jesus. In anything that he does or had done you can see these two principles vividly expressed. Until finally he died on the cross you still can see these principles occurred. And through His experienced on the cross we understand what he meant by saying “take up your cross daily”.
On the cross we can see the picture of relationship; vertical relationship with God and horizontal relationship with all human being. Through the cross we also can see that Jesus surrendered his life for the world, surrender to the point of sacrifice. Jesus did not die because he was killed by the Roman’s soldiers but it is stated that He laid down his life for us. Jesus voluntarily and deliberately gave surrender his life for the world.
The disciples of Jesus Christ knew what it means to live out the cross because they experienced how Jesus challenged them in the first place before they follow Him. They have surrendered everything to follow Jesus that is why they can face anything without fear of losing anything. No one can take from you things that you’ve given away. In other word to live in the way of the cross is to live in the way of freedom.
So the question is whether we have the freedom to do the will of God without being held by our own will or being hindered by our selfishness. Most probably our problem is when we followed Christ in the beginning as believer of Jesus Christ we have never been challenged by the cross. That is why we never learnt to surrender to the point of sacrifice or to maintain our relationship strong in any situation. The cross of Jesus Christ is a place of freedom. Anyone who encounters the cross will never be the same again. How can you be the same if you have the freedom to be what your creator wants you to be and in the same time you will manifest the lifestyle that the whole universe have waited for long time.
My challenge to you today is to embrace the lifestyle of the cross and start to understand that your life is in the right direction in that case you will experience what it means to surrender to the point of sacrifice and to maintain relationship with God and others. Welcome to discipleship.