Welcome to Day 2346 of Wisdom-Trek. Thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Prepare Your Heart – Take Up Your Cross – Daily Wisdom

Putnam Church Message – 03/17/2024 Prepare Your Heart – Take Up Your Cross - Mark 8:34-35 Today, we continue our five-week Lenten series ending on Resurrection Sunday, March 31^st. Today, our message is, “Take Up Your Cross.” Bishop William Williamson tells the story of a recruiter from Teach America who came to Duke University in Durham, NC. Teach America places talented college graduates to work in some of America's hurting schools. The recruiter began her talk with these words… “I can tell by looking at you that I have probably come to the wrong place. Someone told me this was a BMW campus, and, looking at you, I can believe it. You all are successful just by getting into Duke, and you will all go on to successful careers. “And yet I am hoping,” she continued, “that I can convince one of you to give your life away in the toughest job you will ever have. I am looking for people to go to places like poverty-stricken West Virginia, the back hills of Kentucky, South Los Angeles, or downtown Chicago and teach in some of the most difficult schools in the world. Last year, two of our teachers were killed while on the job. But I can tell, just by looking at you, that none of you are interested in that. So go on to your law school, or whatever successful thing you are planning on doing. But if, by chance, some of you just happen to be interested, I've got these brochures here for you that tell about Teach America. The meeting is over.” And with that, the students got up all at once, pushed forward, and jostled to get a brochure for themselves. Those students sensed they wanted something more in their lives than money and fame. They wanted to live for a more significant cause. |That's the kind of life Jesus means for us to have as his disciples as well. Today's Scripture passage is Mark 8:34-35. Jesus gives his recruitment speech, his call to discipleship. It goes:  Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. So here’s the straight truth. Jesus never promises us safety or security or perfect health. He does not promise us success by the standards of this world. He does not promise that we will always get what we want. If we choose to follow him, he promises us times of sacrifice and hardship that could even include death in some countries. But he also promises us that, in the end, we will have a life worth living – an abundant life. The problem is — when we present the Gospel to others — that we often fail to mention Jesus' recruitment speech. We tend to make things seem more palatable, by mentioning the promises of the Gospel but neglecting to point out the demands. This makes us sound bland and tasteless, not seasoned with God’s love.  We are not the salt and light that we need to be. The call to take up a cross and follow Jesus brings sharpness to our faith. But to truly take up a cross, we must first settle three questions in our hearts. “Who Owns My Life?” The first question is, “Who owns my life?” Our knee-jerk response would be to say, “I own it. It's my life.” But to become a disciple of Christ, we must see things differently. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.” Jesus paid for our sins with his blood. That means that we no longer have absolute rights to ourselves. Acknowledging God's ownership of our lives involves being willing to listen to what God has to say to us about all the areas of our lives. There are real issues to grapple with: my time and how I use it; my money and what I do with it; my work and how I approach it; my sexuality and how I view it; my family and how I relate to them. When we become open to listening to God about these things, |we gain a sense of gratitude for God as He grows within our hearts. Many years ago, someone rescued me from a certain death. To this day, I remain grateful to the person who saved my life. Gratitude is always our response to salvation. Once we truly believe that God has rescued us from eternal death, we will want to listen to and serve God, Which will happen naturally because we love our Savior. When we become committed Christians, we find a new-found eagerness for God. God is not just something we tack onto our lives. He is a life-changing force. To be a disciple of Christ, you become a student of His teachings. As with any teacher, Jesus has expectations of his followers, his students. Being a disciple of Christ is more than believing a few things about God and then doing whatever you want. It involves turning over the ownership of her life to God. That is the beginning of a new life of true discipleship. “Am I Willing to Suffer?” The second question we must settle in our minds to take up the cross is this: “Am I willing to suffer for Jesus?" Crucifixion was the harshest form of execution practiced by the Romans. When Jesus mentioned a cross, his hearers would have immediately recognized it as a call to be willing to suffer. Suffering has always been a part of discipleship. 1 Peter advises us to bear it patiently, trust in God, and not retaliate. But we live in a place where it is easy to be a Christian, and we can forget this and be unprepared for suffering when it happens. On the other hand, if we lived in a place where it is difficult to be a Christian, when we suffer for Christ, we could forget the victory that Christ has already won and lose hope. There is hope. Jesus says in John 16:33, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” Let me share a story from about ten years ago about the Christians of Egypt. For the most part, it is a country that is antagonistic to Christians, and the church knows what it means to suffer for Christ. Many businesses, as a policy, will not hire a Christian. It isn't easy to have repairs completed on churches. Priests and pastors are frequently spat upon as they walk down the street. Church leaders were placed under house arrest for years. Every day, Egyptian Christians have to be prepared to suffer if it comes to that. Even knowing there is potential for persecution and suffering, the churches are full of young people as well as older Christians. Even when over 50 churches were attacked or destroyed in 2013 and some Christians wanted to fight back, church leaders urged everyone not to retaliate but instead to trust God during their suffering. Their response defused the situation and earned the respect of many Muslim neighbors. While in many countries, conditions for Christians have improved, there are many places where Christians are persecuted for their faith daily. We may not be used to thinking of faith as causing us discomfort, pain, or even inconvenience. Yet, we cannot be the kind of disciple Jesus means us to be unless we are prepared to suffer for him each day. “Am I Willing to Go On an Adventure?” The third question we must settle in our minds is this: “Am I willing to go on an adventure?” That may sound odd, but Jesus asks us to follow him when we do not know where he will lead us. “Discipleship is being willing to follow Jesus without knowing exactly where he is going.” As we looked at last week, it's having Jesus come up to you and say, “Come, follow me,” and you drop your fishing gear right then and there, never to take it up again. It’s launching out with Jesus, little knowing what you will do or where he will lead you. It's the crazy excitement of going on an adventure. The word serendipity means “making a surprising discovery.” The word is taken from the Serendip, a ship in a story about some people who set sail, not knowing their destination, but just experiencing each day's surprising discoveries. Living for Jesus, at times, can be a serendipitous adventure. Every day may become a journey full of joy and sometimes surprises. You wake up. |How will God meet you this day? |How is God going to work through you? What people will you meet? Every day is meant to be a discovery and an opportunity to further God’s Kingdom. Once we let ourselves loose and set sail into the wind of God_; there is no telling where God will bring us. Quite simply because it will give us a life worth living, an Abundant Life: If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. (Mark 8:35 NLT) What Does It Really Mean to Take Up Your Cross and Follow Jesus? It doesn’t require a critical reading of the four Gospels to notice that the twelve disciples often missed the mark when it came to understanding what it means to follow Jesus. Even though they were bold enough to confess that Jesus was the Messiah (Luke 9:20), they still had little grasp of what that meant. Indeed, they seemed to mistakenly think that Jesus’ anointing would lead to the kind of worldly power that people have always sought (Luke 9:46). But Jesus taught that a critical part of being the Messiah was self-denial, death, and ultimately resurrection—and that to follow Him would mean the same for all of His disciples. What does it mean to follow Jesus? As one continues in faith, it will mean a radical renunciation of self and an ensuing embrace of identifying with Christ and His suffering. Jesus calls those who follow Him to become like Him in His suffering and self-denial. And this is not some “next-level” Christian living designed for those who want to be exceedingly zealous. No, conformity with the Lord Jesus Christ is the only standard of Christian living. The Path Jesus Forges Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.” (Mark 8:34 NLT) When Jesus told the crowd what it would mean to follow Him, He articulated it in two ways. First, He said those wishing to follow Him “must give up your own way.” In other words, the follower of Jesus is to say, “My life is no longer all about me. It’s no longer all about the identity or reputation I’ve been establishing. It’s no longer all about my agenda.” Instead, we are losing ourselves in Christ. That doesn’t mean that our DNA is irrelevant or our personality is obscured—for it is only in Christ that our true self begins to shine. But when you follow Jesus, your life is given to His custody. Second, in a parallel passage, Jesus said in Luke 9:23, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me.” While Jesus is speaking metaphorically, this is a radical metaphor. His audience of people living under oppressive Roman rule—were very familiar with the scene of a condemned man walking to the place of his execution, carrying the means of his execution across his shoulders. Jesus is telling people that to follow Him means following Him even to Calvary. He is saying, “If you follow Me, it will mean your death to self.” Even though many Christians do not die by martyrdom, especially in our Western civilizations, Christ and many of His apostles did. The words of Paul to the Galatians are true for anyone who is in Christ: “Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world’s interest in me has also died,” Gal. 6:14. To follow Christ as Paul did and as He commands is to know that this passing world and its empty desires are forfeit and that God is all in all. The Reason to Follow Following Jesus in self-denial and suffering means changing how a believer views life. Instead of doing everything we can to preserve our lives, we must be ready to let our lives go so that we can grasp onto eternal life. As we weigh the benefits of this world against the benefits of eternity with God, we must ask ourselves, “Do I want honor now with the world and shame when Christ returns? Or am I prepared to accept shame now and honor then?” And those who follow Christ will answer as Paul did in Phil 3:8, “Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ.” To follow Christ as Paul did and as He commands is to know that this passing world and its empty desires are forfeit and that God is all in all. All of this world’s apparent treasures will come out to nothing. All of the riches will be found in Christ. Who Can Follow? When Jesus challenged the rich young ruler in Luke 18 to leave all and follow Him, the man turned away, unwilling to lose the worldly goods that made up his earthly life. In response, Jesus told His disciples, “‘In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!” Those who heard this said, “Then who in the world can be saved?’ He replied, ‘What is impossible for people is possible with God,’” (Luke 18:25–27). When Christ returns to finalize God’s Kingdom, establishing the Global Eden, and the bill comes due, only those who have walked the path to Calvary with Christ will find their lives profitable. As we seek to follow Jesus in perseverance, we would do well to remind ourselves to trust in Jesus as a response to His initiative and grace in our lives. The same grace that brings us to faith in Him then sustains us and makes it possible—and enjoyable for us to follow Him. The strength both to believe and to follow are found in the grace of God alone. As we hear Jesus’ most challenging commands, we must remember that obedience always follows faith; let me repeat, obedience always follows faith. The kind of transformation that Jesus calls us to is not a transformation that says, “Here are a few principles that I’m going to try and stick to myself,” or “Here are some concepts that I’m going to hang on the Christmas tree of my life.” No, the power to follow Jesus in the way of the cross emerges from a life that has been united with the Lord Jesus Christ by grace, through faith with the power of God’s indwelling Holy Spirit. It is in our union with Christ that the glory of the world begins to pale while the glory of God grows brighter. With God, it is possible to persevere in obedient faith as we renounce self-idolatry and embrace the suffering of Christ. On this fifth Sunday of Lent, let us consider Christ's words, “Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, ‘If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.’” Let us follow Christ by taking up our cross, giving up our lives, and living for Christ according to the Good News. Next week is Palm Sunday, and our focus will be on Preparing the Way in a message titled “He Comes, Rising on a Donkey.” Please read John 12:12-16. If you found this podcast insightful, subscribe and leave us a review, then encourage your friends and family to join us and come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy. Thank you so much for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and, most importantly, I am your friend as I serve you through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal. As we take this trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Everyday! See you next time for more wisdom from God’s Word!