Bible Verse of the Day Sunday February 7th 2021

Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

Matthew's writings targeted the Nation of Israel, to call on them to renounce the spiritual adultery that had them in its clutches. His objective was to get the Israelites to believe in the true promised Messiah. The majority of the Children of Israel did not see Christ Jesus as their perceived political Messiah. Even though Matthew's target audience was the Children of Israel, blessings are abundant for all that read it. 

This book is especially critical for the one that is ready to surrender their lives, body, mind, spirit, and soul to Christ Jesus and become one of His true Disciples. Jesus clarified that a true disciple would not only trust Him for salvation and the remission of sin but surrender their lives to Him. Taking up our Cross and following Him is sometimes falsely described as a burden we must bear to follow Jesus. Taking up our Cross is about denying ourselves, forgetting our plans and schemes, and giving ourselves, bodies, minds, and souls to Jesus and the furtherance of the Gospel to the ends of the earth.   

The Greek word for deny is aparnesastho (Strong's 533), which in its fulness means to "disown or repudiate." In other words, we must turn our backs on the world with all its glitter and glamor, its fame and fortune, and seek after what Christ Jesus has for us to do. The denial of oneself is not just giving up things, but the giving up of ourselves, absolutely and profusely. To deny ourselves is to surrender our lives to Christ Jesus's mission, which is the salvation of souls. To deny ourselves and take up our Cross has absolutely nothing to do with any daily tribulations we encounter. It is about identifying with every attribute of the shame, rejection, and pain Jesus endured on the Cross of Calvary. 

The beautiful aspect of this is any pain or suffering we encounter will lead us one day to the glory that is Christ Jesus. The denial of ourselves is yielding any self-control to God ultimately. The rejection of oneself can also be an abstemious attempt to gain the favor of God. The former is what God is seeking from His children, the latter is not. No peace treaty can be entered into with an openly hostile world to Christ Jesus, the Word of God (John 1:1).

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