Take up your cross
Day 443, Tuesday, Oct. 28
Matthew 16:13 – Chapter 18
Following Jesus is an either-or proposition.
We follow him, or we don’t. There’s no way to follow Jesus a little bit, or to follow Jesus alongside following someone or something else.
It just isn’t possible to follow him and also follow our own desires, or also follow wealth, or also follow a person, or also follow a political movement.
There is no both-and, only either-or.
Jesus makes that clear in 16:24-25, “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 will find it.”
It would do no good to gain the whole world and yet forfeit your soul, he says. “For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.”
By coincidence today’s meditation begins with exactly the same truth: “The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.”
-Rev. Mark Fleming
Tuesday meditation
Psalms 18:20-29
The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I am not guilty of turning from my God. All his laws are before me; I have not turned away from his decrees. I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin. The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.
To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the devious you show yourself shrewd. You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty. You, Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.
Prayer focus
God, grant us the courage and the will to give our lives to you without reservation or limitation.