April, 2001

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." Luke 9:23

After a private prayer, Jesus decided that it was time to reveal His true identity to His disciples. When asked who they thought Jesus was, Peter, their spokesman, answered with a profound statement, "The Christ of God." Though Jesus didn’t say, "Good answer! Peter", yet from a parallel passage, we saw Jesus pointed out that Peter’s answer was correct because it was a divine revelation from heaven.

Knowing Jesus is the Christ (Savior) is absolutely vital. You’ll be saved if you confess Jesus is the Savior, but this confession alone can’t automatically make you a disciple. After telling His disciples what He had to go through—suffering, death, and resurrection on the third day—to claim victory over Satan, he taught them what it meant to be disciples. First off, "If anyone" means those who are willing. To be a disciple of Christ is a decision of the will.

The word "come after" means to go or to follow a person. That’s what discipleship is all about: to copy the mentor. Jesus then gave three mandates to those who wanted to be His disciples: deny self, take up his cross, and follow. A true disciple is one who has made and implemented a radical decision to "deny" himself. This word functions as a polar opposite to "confess," which has the sense of acknowledging a thing or a person. Now, we see a picture: on the one hand, we need to "confess" Christ as Savior, and on the other, "deny" ourselves as the person in charge of our life. This does not mean cultivating a weak, passive, nonassertive personality or merely denying certain pleasures. It is, rather, for the disciples to recognize how to live for the sake of Christ, not self. The next mandate carries an even harder demand. "To take up his cross" is a picture of a criminal being forced to carry the bar of his cross to the place of execution. He was on a one-way journey. He’d not be back. The final mandate is "to follow," which means to be led instead of taking the lead. The danger of "following" is that you don’t necessarily know where you are heading. A disciple is willing to follow his master’s instruction because he trusts his master’s good intention and ability. This is a "faith" issue. How committed you are as a disciple depends on how much faith you have with the Lord.

Something interesting in these three Greek verbs is worth mentioning. "Deny" is a statement and in its present tense, which can be interpreted as a continuous action that needed to be renewed often. "Take up the cross" and "follow" is an imperative and happens at a point of time. It means that every time you deny yourself, you are commanded to take up the cross and follow. This is what Disciple is meant to be.