Luk 9:23-24 ESV – 23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

Discipleship is costly.  Jesus made it clear just how costly in statements like, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26); and a couple verses later He said “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33) [emphasis mine].

These are not easy statements.  Some would say that there must be two tiers to Christianity – the believer and the disciple.  The first tier believes and is saved and the other tier (the black belt Christian) goes on to higher forms of Christianity.  But Jesus didn’t reserve these comments for those that identified themselves as “ready for the next step”.  Jesus made these comments to the masses and He made these comments to encourage the masses to consider the cost of following Him (Luke 14:28-33).  The cost is steep.

Discipleship will cost your flesh everything

If you find that discipleship is hard, take heart – this is Jesus’ plan.  In Luke 9:23-24 He told anyone interested in following Him that he must “deny himself” and “take up his cross daily”.  Jesus intends for discipleship to grate against the flesh.  You might be wondering at this point, “And.. this is supposed to be a good thing?”  Not only is it a good thing, but it is a wonderfully loving attitude toward us.

What we call the flesh is really the unsanctified part of us that still desires the evil things of this world.  The bible makes it very clear that to be friendly toward those things is to be an enemy of God (James 4:4; 1John 2:15-17).  Ultimately our flesh is not only an enemy of God but also of our own self interest (Luke 12:5).  Being friendly with the flesh is like a doctor being friendly toward cancer.  We don’t need cancer friendly doctors; we need doctors who see cancer for what it is – an enemy of life.

If you want to keep your life then lose it

Jesus said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:24).  The interesting thing to note here is that Jesus is not telling people to deny themselves for the sake of denying themselves but rather for the sake of saving themselves.  Jesus appeals to that part of us that wants our lives to be saved.  We are commended to give up something less valuable for something infinitely more valuable.

In Matthew 13:44 Jesus tells the story of a man who found an incredible treasure hidden in a field.  In order to get the treasure he had to buy the field and in order to buy the field he went and joyfully sold everything that he had.  Contrary to this, the person who clings to this life is like a bachelor who finds a billion dollar treasure chest hidden in field; contemplates buying the field; but decides not to because he would have to sell the only possession he has (an old Buick from great grandpa).  Foolish sentimentality might prevent someone from trading in great grandpa’s car for a billion dollar treasure, but it’s sin when we find more value in the flesh than in a supremely valuable God.

Jer 2:13 ESV – for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Place no confidence in the flesh for it will deceive you into thinking that great grandpa’s car is worth something!  Trade it in, lose your life.

Jesus dealt with the flesh to empower us to deal with our flesh

Jesus Christ died the death that we deserve.  We deserve death because we inherited our great grandpa Adam’s nature (that old Buick).  We were by that nature enemies of God, but Jesus Christ paid the price.  It is through His cross that the work of salvation was finished.  We, in a very real way, were crucified with Christ so that old nature is considered dead (Gal 2:20).  The work of salvation was finished and yet the work of salvation is still carried on through us.  That is, Christ accomplished the victory through His cross but establishes victories through believers.

Rom 16:20 ESV – 20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. [emphasis mine]

God will one day crush Satan under our feet.  That’s amazing!  He was victorious through His death and He causes us to be victorious over Satan.  We serve an amazing God.  His cross empowers us to take up our cross to daily defeat the desires of the flesh.  Although Christ has paid the penalty for our flesh we still inhabit our flesh and evil desires still remain.  How then does the disciple take up his cross and follow Him?  He told us.  Deny ourselves.  A good cancer doctor knows that the only way to deal with cancer is to attack it.  He might attack it through various means but the goal is to kill it.

Mat 11:12 ESV – 12 From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.

Disciples of Christ must get violent.  Not against others of course, but against our own flesh nature.  We must deny those sinful desires that still remain.  For the sake our own souls we must put to death those attitudes that are contrary to Life.  Through the Lord’s power we must attack the cancer called flesh.

Col 3:5 ESV – 5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

The disciple of Christ clings to Jesus’ cross as the only grounds for salvation and also clings to his own cross (denies Himself) as the God ordained means of following Him.