TAKING UP YOUR CROSS SUBMITTING TO A GREATER POWER THAN OURSELVES 12-13-24 VIDEO see yourself through the finished work of Christ
Taking up your cross. What did Jesus mean? Was He talking about your share of suffering and pain for your sins? He certainly was not! He was encouraging His disciples to let go of themselves and walk in close and continuous fellowship with Him. It means recognizing that you are submitted to a greater power than yourself.
Luke 9:23 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].
24 For whoever would preserve his life and save it will lose and destroy it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he will preserve and save it [from the penalty of eternal death].
25 For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and ruins or forfeits (loses) himself? AMP
Luke 9:23 Then he told them what they could expect for themselves: "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how.
24 Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self.
25 What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? MSG
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LUKE 9:23 Jesus said to all of his followers, If you truly desire to be my disciple, you must disown your life completely, embrace my cross as your own, and surrender to my ways.
24 For if you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for my glory, you will discover true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep.
25 Even if you gained all the wealth and power of this world, and all the things it could offer you, yet lost your soul in the process, what good is that? TPT
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LUKE 9:23 He then looked everyone in the eye and said to them, "Joining me in close companionship in your daily walk, involves perceiving my mission as fully representing you. Get over and done with any idea of "self" that contradicts your true I-am-ness! Here is how you do it: lift up your cross once and for all, by seeing it mirrored in mine! My cross is your cross!"
24 Trying to keep the "self" of your own making intact, is a lost cause to begin with. "Losing" yourself in me, is realizing that I am the source of who you are by design! This is your saving grace!
25 Here's the bottom line, how does prostituting who you really are, translate into any profit, when all you've gained is the momentary, sham applause of the entire religious world? MIRROR
GAL 6:14 May my boasting be in nothing but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. The religious-systems and applause of this world have no appeal to me. As far as they are concerned, I am like a dead person.
15 The new creation in Christ steals the show; not whether someone is circumcised or not!
16 Our union with Christ sets the pace and makes us the true Israel, not whether we are Jew or Gentile, circumcised or not! Oh, what peace we discover in his mercy! This rule is the new law we submit ourselves to as the principle of our daily walk!MIRROR
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GAL 6:14 May my only boast be found in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. In him I have been crucified to this natural realm; and the natural realm is dead to me and no longer dominates my life.
15 Whether a man is circumcised or uncircumcised is meaningless to me. What really matters is the transforming power of this new creation life.
16 And all those who live in agreement with this standard will have true peace and Gods delight, for they are the Israel of God. TPT
John 3:14 In the same way that Moses lifted the serpent in the desert so people could have something to see and then believe, it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up
15 and everyone who looks up to him, trusting and expectant, will gain a real life, eternal life.
16 "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.
17 God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. MSG
ROM 6:6 Could it be any clearer that co-crucified with him to our former identity is now and forever deprived of its power? For we were dismantle the stronghold of sin within us, so that we would not continue to live one moment longer submitted to sins power.
7 Obviously, a dead person is incapable of sinning.
8 And if we were co-crucified with the Anointed One, we know that we will also share in the fullness of his life. TPT
Rom 6: 9 It is plain for all to see that death lost its dominion over Christ in his resurrection; he need not ever die again to prove a further point.
10 His appointment with death was once-off. As far as sin is concerned, he is dead. The reason for his death was to take away the sin of the world; his life now exhibits our union with the life of God.
11 This reasoning is equally relevant to you. Calculate the cross; there can only be one logical conclusion: he died your death; that means you died to sin, and are now alive to God. Sin-consciousness can never again feature in your future! You are in Christ Jesus; his Lordship is the authority of this union.
12 You are under no obligation to sin; it has no further rights to dominate your dead declared body. Therefore let it not entice you to obey its lusts. MIRROR
1 Cor 1:17 God didn't send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn't send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center Christ on the Cross be trivialized into mere words.
18 The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. MSG
GAL 3:1Galatians! Galatians! Have you completely lost your common sense? Cant you see how the law bewitched you and blurred your vision to distort the revelation of what the cross of Christ accomplished in you? This was so clearly predicted in Scripture. How can you not be persuaded by the truth?
2 Please would you reason with me on this one issue; on what basis did you receive the Holy Spirit? Are we talking gift or reward here? What kind of message ignites faith? What a condemned sinner and failure you are as revealed in the law, or what God believes to be true about you as revealed in the Gospel. Lets not confuse Law with Grace.
3 Can you see how stupid it would be to start in the spirit (believing in the success of the cross) and then for some crazy reason to switch modes back to do it yourself again! As if your own works could add anything to what God has already done in Christ. MIRROR
Gal 3:13 Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the Cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse.
14 And now, because of that, the air is cleared and we can see that Abraham's blessing is present and available for non-Jews, too. We are all able to receive God's life, his Spirit, in and with us by believing just the way Abraham received it. MSG ↕↕↕
GAL 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse as consequence of our failure to keep the law. In his cross he concentrated the total curse of the human race upon himself. In his abandoning himself to death, he absorbed and dissolved the horror of the curse in his own person. Scripture declares that anyone hanging on a tree embodies the curse.
14 This act of Christ released the blessing of Abraham upon the Gentiles! Now we are free to receive 1the blessing of the Spirit. MIRROR
Gal 2:20 Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
21 I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily. MSG
Eph 1:7 Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we're a free people free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free!
8 He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need,
9 letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ,
10 a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth. MSG
Col 1:21 You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got.
22 But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God's side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence.
23 You don't walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message. MSG
Col 2:15 He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets. MSG
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COL 2:15 Then Jesus made a public spectacle of all the powers and principalities of darkness, stripping away from them every weapon and all their spiritual authority and power to accuse us. And by the power of the cross, Jesus led them around as prisoners in a procession of triumph. He was not their prisoner; they were his!
1 Peter 2:24 He used his servant body to carry our sins to the Cross so we could be rid of sin, free to live the right way. His wounds became your healing. MSG
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Rom 8:29 God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. MSG
Matt 4:19 Jesus said to them, "Come with me. I'll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I'll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass."
20 They didn't ask questions, but simply dropped their nets and followed. MSG