THE DISCIPLE MUST FOLLOW THE MASTER’S STEPS.
Lord- 2962. kurios, koo'-ree-os; from kuros (supremacy); supreme in authority, i.e. (as noun) controller; by impl. Mr. (as a respectful title):--God, Lord, master, Sir.
Luke 9:23,Mat 10:38, Mat 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 14:27,
The daily cross of self-denial. The Lord had told the apostles of his owncoming sufferings; now he warns them that those sufferings must, in somesense, repeat themselves in all his faithful followers, he speaks to all. “Ifany man willeth to come after me,” he said. There must be the wish first.There is no perseverance in religion without desire, without longing,without love. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst afterrighteousness.” They who do not hunger are not filled. Again, the trueChristian wish is to come after Christ. All men wish, more or less earnestly,more or less languidly, to get to heaven at last. That wish is, as manyentertain it, utterly selfish. The Christian wishes to come after Christ, and,
following Christ here, to be at last with him there. To come after Christ,then, is the central wish of the Christian life, and the means by which thatwish is realized is self-denial. Christ pleased not himself; his disciples must follow him.The true self is the conscience; but the lower part of ournature, the appetites and affections which we share with the rest of theanimal creation, are so noisy and turbulent, fill so large a part of ourconscious existence (in many men, alas! almost the whole), that they seemto be the self, and usurp the name of self, which properly belongs to thehigher self, the conscience and the reason. It is the lower self which wemust deny. When appetite says, “This is pleasant,” but conscience answers,“It is wrong,” then we must take part with conscience, which bears in itselfthe evidence of authority, and deny that lower self which would disturb theharmony of our nature by usurping the position of command which doesnot belong to it. The precept is one of paramount importance. The Lordrepeats it, translating it now into the distinctive language of Christianity,“Let him take up his cross.” He had used those words once already(Matthew 10:38). It was long, probably, before the apostles understoodthem. We know their meaning now. The cross was a thing of horror once; but the exceeding great love of our Master and only Saviour Jesus Christ has shed resplendent light around the tree of shame. The wordhas changed its meaning; it has become a name for the noblest self-denial,the most Divine self-sacrifice. Not all acts of self-denial are a bearing of thecross, but only those which spring out of faith in Christ, and radiate fromthe cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. He taketh up his cross who denieshimself daily in the faith of Christ, and for the sake of Christ, seeking onlyto please him and to be made more and more like unto him. Such acts ofholy self-denial are taken up, so to speak, into the one great act of holiestself sacrifice, and become parts of it (Colossians 1:24), and derive theirbeauty and glory from the reflected glory of the Saviour’s cross. Suchfaithful Christians, whom the strong wish to come after Christ urges withever growing earnestness to take up their cross daily, will follow him whobore the cross for them along the narrow way till they appear, sealed withthe seal of the living God upon their foreheads, before the glory throne.
2. The true life.The wish which is centered in this present life is opposed tothe Christian wish to come after Christ. When the heart is set upon thethings of this life, comfort, station, wealth, and such like, it loses sight ofChrist, who is the Life of men. Therefore he who willeth, whose setpurpose is, to save this life, with all its treasures, must lose the true Life,which is Christ. For the Lord died upon the cross. His first followersshrank not from the death of martyrdom for his sake. All true Christiansmust have the martyr spirit; they must be martyrs in will; they must bewilling, if need be, to lose all earthly things, even life itself, for Christ’ssake. The Lord gave himself for us. He asks for our whole self in return.We must keep nothing back, or we shall lose the true life, which is the lifein Christ — eternal life, Christ himself. And if this is lost, all is lost.Nothing can compensate a man for the loss of the true life. No gain, noteven the gain of the whole world, if it were possible, can balance thattremendous loss. For the loss is real, but the gain illusory. A man may seemto gain all that the world prizes; but if with that gain the true life is lost,there is no true joy, no brightness, no abiding gladness. And all that wasgained, though it seemed like all the kingdoms of the world and the gloryof them, must vanish in a moment when the years come to an end as itwere a tale that is told. Then what shall a man give in exchange for his life,when the true life is lost, and only that life, which is living death, remains?What shall a man give then, when he hath naught to give; when his riches,and his knowledge, and his strength, and his earthly rank, and the timegiven him for working out his own salvation, and all his opportunities ofserving God and doing the work which God had given him to do, havepassed away forever; — when all these things have fallen away from himand left him all desolate and alone, a poor soul, helpless and destitute,realizing, when it is too late, the bitter truth that it is in the sight of Godwretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked — what shall aman give then? Let him learn to give now — to give his heart, and, with hisheart, his time, his labour, his prayers, his earthly goods. It is a poor gift atthe best; but if it is given in faith and love, it is lent unto the Lord, and theLord will repay with large increase in the great day of account. We areunprofitable servants; the best of us only do what is our bounden duty; weonly give him what is his own. But he is pleased in his graciouscondescension to accept this poor service of ours, and to give us in returnthat far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, that eternal life which
is the gift of God.