From Matthew 16:24-28 / Taking up Our Cross

This discourse is what follows Jesus’ dealing with Peter’s desire for Christ to remain. This theme is continued: Every place where our will runs counter to the Father’s – this is where our desire must be crucified. This is our cross. We do not have to die in literal crucifixion for sin – this Christ alone can do. But ours is to lay aside our desires and agenda, in favor of the Father’s eternal plans. And Oh, how hard this is at times. Heavenly Father, give me grace to see it, and do it.

Note first then: The loss of life here is not so much physical death, as it is losing our “right” to direct our own lives and to accomplish our own goals; to live for His plan and purpose.

Will we lay this down? Or will we demand that God give us the life we want, irrespective of the plan of redemption? This is the great question. And it is a question of life or death.

Note second: 21-26 Is all one with taking His easy yoke and light burden upon ourselves. It is off-loading a life built around God helping us achieve OUR goals, to being given over to devoting ourselves to God achieving His eternal plan and purpose. We lose the world – but we gain Him! We gain true LIFE, in all of its fullness.

And herein is the problem with so much of pop-Christianity today: Jesus is not our end, but rather the means to achieve some end of our own making.

We’ve lost the perspective of Asaph in Ps. 73:25 “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.” We’ve replaced it with “What do you have for me in Heaven beside yourself, and how can you give me the pleasures of this world?”

Yes, it is true that in Christ we are blessed even in this life. His grace toward His redeemed ones is immeasurable, and that, compounded upon common grace. But when we see these as ends in themselves rather than mere types and shadows of the glory of Christ Himself, we lose everything. At His right hand are indeed pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16:11). But what makes that true is that we are at His right hand – near Him – gazing upon Him – delighting in Him close up, and not through this present dark glass. David’s prayer in Ps. 17 ends with the sum of this reality: “As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.”

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote it. The Stones performed it. Experts say it is one of the 100 songs that shook the world. Another says it is the most popular rock song ever written. And over 15 million people bought it to listen to over and over. And its message has been renewed and re-sung in countless ways by countless musicians. So we hear its more clever refrain in the words of Lyle Lovett:

So like the years and all the seasons pass; And like the sand runs through the hour glass; I just keep on running faster; Chasing the happily I am ever after.”

King David knew better. He knew there can be no ultimate satisfaction in this life. That lack of satisfaction is not a condition to be remedied, but a reality to be put into its proper context. For we were never meant to find satisfaction in this life. We are not meant to have that, until the resurrection.

David’s line can be taken 2 ways – and perhaps it is meant to be taken both ways.

a. When I awake in the resurrection, I will finally see your likeness God – and at last I will be fully satisfied.

b. When I awake in the resurrection, and your sanctifying work is fully done, I shall be satisfied having been conformed to your likeness.

Here alone is true satisfaction – beholding the likeness, the face of our Dear Redeemer, and being conformed to it. If we seek satisfaction anywhere else, we shall never obtain it. And if we are satisfied apart from it, we are the most blind, deceived and pitiable creatures of all.

And so we read in George MacDonald’s “The Diary of an Old Soul”

Thy fishes breathe but where thy waters roll; Thy birds fly but within thy airy sea;  My soul breathes only in thy infinite soul; I breathe, I think, I love, I live but thee. Oh breathe, oh think,—O Love, live into me; Unworthy is my life till all divine, Till thou see in me only what is thine.

Note third: It is in the adoption of one of these paradigms versus the other, that the last judgment will come at Jesus’ own hands. We must consider carefully and regularly in what direction the inclination of our hearts leans.

No, in this life, it will never be perfectly so. But if we know nothing of the Holy Spirit’s ministrations in calling us back to the Cross-centered life over and over – we have great reason to fear. And, by the same token, if as a Believer, you are privileged to have the Spirit call you back over and over – how great ought your rejoicing to be.

Note lastly: How wonderfully Jesus gives glimpses at times of the glories to come in cheering and strengthening our souls. For the Disciples, there would be an astounding fulfillment of this just a few short days later on the Mount of Transfiguration.

But for all that – Peter will tell us later that Believers have something even more trustworthy than that supernatural experience for our foretaste – the sure word of prophecy. God’s personal promise that it will be so. 2 Pet. 1:19-21 “And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”