How to Change the Direction and Pace of Your Life
Jesus commands us…
Matt 7:13-14 [MSG] “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. 14 The way to life — to God! — is vigorous and requires total attention.”
“It isn’t that Christianity has been tried and found wanting. It is that it has been found difficult and so never really tried.” – G.K. Chesterton
Deny Yourself, Take Your Cross, Follow Jesus
Matt 7:13-14 13 AMP Enter through the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and spacious and broad is the way that leads away to destruction, and many are those who are entering through it. 14 But the gate is narrow (contracted by pressure) and the way is straitened and compressed that leads away to life, and few are those who find it. [Deut 30:19; Jer 21:8.]
Luke 9:23 AMP And He said to all, If any person wills to come after Me, let him deny himself [disown himself, forget, lose sight of himself and his own interests, refuse and give up himself] and take up his cross daily and follow Me [cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying also].
DENY HIMSELF: [disown himself, forget, lose sight of himself and his own interests, refuse and give up himself]
TAKE UP HIS CROSS DAILY AND FOLLOW ME: [cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying also].
Deny Yourself…
1/ exchange pressures of life for the pressure of your cross
– easier to be washed away in the flood, than to hold on to a tree
– relinquish control over your life daily
– cross = death, life, power
– deny yourself, or deny Christ
Take your cross…
2/ takes a refocusing of your entire attention –from self absorption to Christ
– change direction
[flood – rescue chopper]
– cleave to basket
– power comes from cross
The Power of The Cross…
1 Corinthians 1:18 AMP For the story and message of the cross is sheer absurdity and folly to those who are perishing and on their way to perdition, but to us who are being saved it is the [manifestation of] the power of God.
1/ The power to kill the world’s hold upon you
Galatians 6:14 For my part, I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate.
– Paul lost all interest in the world’s opinions, like a dead man, uninterested in the objects around him
2/ The power for dedicated discipleship
Luke 14:25- 27 One day when large groups of people were walking along with him, Jesus turned and told them, “Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters — yes, even one’s own self! — can’t be my disciple. Anyone who won’t shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can’t be my disciple.”
– it takes strong determination and daily discipline to take up your cross
– you must lose sight of yourself to allow God to do His work in you
– determine to focus on the rewards of reaching goal, not obstacles
3/ The power to defeat faint heartedness
Hebrews 12:1-3, 12-13 THE MESSAGE Do you see what this means — all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running — and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed — that exhilarating finish in and with God — he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! …
So don’t sit around on your hands! No more dragging your feet! Clear the path for long-distance runners so no one will trip and fall, so no one will step in a hole and sprain an ankle. Help each other out. And run for it!
4/ The power to conquer the flesh
Gal 5:24-26 THE MESSAGE
Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good — crucified.
Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.
1 Peter 4:1-2 THE MESSAGE
Since Jesus went through everything you’re going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. 2 Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.
5/ The power over the fear of death
Hebrews 2:14-15 Since the children are made of flesh and blood, it’s logical that the Savior took on flesh and blood in order to rescue them by his death. By embracing death, taking it into himself, he destroyed the Devil’s hold on death 15 and freed all who cower through life, scared to death of death.
This is your cross?
1/ When you take up a ministry given to you by Jesus for which you will die for
– when you deny yourself, you reject your carnal response to your cross
– if this includes dealing with unreasonable people, you cry to God for wisdom and understanding
when He delivers you, you then can help others respond rightly to similar situations
2 Corinthians 1:4-5 THE MESSAGE
He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort — we get a full measure of that, too.
2 Corinthians 12:15 I’d be most happy to empty my pockets, even mortgage my life, for your good.
2/ when you accept a task greater than you can accomplish
– if you picked up a cross you can carry, you picked up the wrong cross!
– determine to see insurmountable obstacles as opportunities to cry out to God
3/ When you completely submit to God-created authorities
– Roman soldiers whipped Jesus and commanded Him to pick up His cross
– “Whoever… resists the power, resists the ordinance of God.” Romans 13:1,2
4/ When you respond to ridicule with rejoicing
– Jesus was treated worse then a criminal
Matthew 5:11-12 THE MESSAGE “Not only that — count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens — give a cheer, even! — for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.
5/ When you experience pain and hardships while you give away life
2 Corinthians 4:7-12 THE MESSAGE
If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us — trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us — he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best!
Deny Yourself, Take Your Cross, Follow Jesus
Hebrews 3:12 AMP [Therefore beware] brethren, take care, lest there be in any one of you a wicked, unbelieving heart [which refuses to cleave to, trust in, and rely on Him], leading you to turn away and desert or stand aloof from the living God.
Follow Jesus…
3/ vigorous – it takes determination
– always be tempted to take short cuts or to give up
– conforming to Christ is a life time of extreme effort
“follow Me [cleave steadfastly to Me]”
Hebrews 3:13-19 AMP But instead warn (admonish, urge, and encourage) one another every day, as long as it is called Today, that none of you may be hardened [into settled rebellion] by the deceitfulness of sin [by the fraudulence, the stratagem, the trickery which the delusive glamor of his sin may play on him]. For we have become fellows with Christ (the Messiah) and share in all He has for us, if only we hold our first newborn confidence and original assured expectation [in virtue of which we are believers] firm and unshaken to the end.
Then while it is [still] called Today, if you would hear His voice and when you hear it, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion [in the desert, when the people provoked and irritated and embittered God against them]. [Psalm 95:7,8.]
For who were they who heard and yet were rebellious and provoked [Him]? Was it not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He irritated and provoked and grieved for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose dismembered bodies were strewn and left in the desert? And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who disobeyed [who had not listened to His word and who refused to be compliant or be persuaded]?
So we see that they were not able to enter [into His rest], because of their unwillingness to adhere to and trust in and rely on God [unbelief had shut them out]. [Numbers 14:1-35.]
Each of Us Is Given a Uniquely Designed Cross To Draw us Closer To God…
Follow Jesus…
1/ deny yourself: daily reject your desires
2/ take up your cross: daily embrace your cross
3/ vigorously follow Jesus: “follow Me [cleave steadfastly to Me]”
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