Just Follow Jesus

Major-General Jeb Stuart expressed his commitment to General Robert E. Lee with a simple salutation on his letters. He would always sign his letters to the commanding General of the Confederacy: “Yours to count on.” That should be our daily prayer to our Lord. Likewise, by our commitment to Jesus we are saying, “Lord, You can count on me!” The simple truth is, we are to commit our lives completely to Jesus. Look once again at the Lord’s words. “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). Today, we have washed all the blood from the cross and made it a trinket we wear around our necks. Lest we forget, the cross was one of the most horrifying instruments of death ever devised to execute another human being. It was specifically designed to publicly degrade, torture and punish a convicted criminal in the cruelest way possible. It was so disgraceful that even the Bible declared, “Anyone hung on a tree is under God's curse” (Deuteronomy 21:23). So many individuals were crucified through the years by Rome that most soldiers soon become harden to the task with some becoming very adopted in the cruelty of killing people. Sadly, such inhuman treatment also extended among the masses as any crucifixion became a form of entertainment. “Only twenty-four years previously, about A.D. 6, ‘the Romans crucified hundreds of followers of the rebel, Judas the Gaulonite’” as a visible warning of what happens to all criminals within the Empire. Jesus did not need to warn the people about the horror of the cross. They had witnessed it firsthand. It was entirely possible as the Lord spoke these words, they were passing the body of a dead individual still hanging on a cross days after his crucifixion. My friends, when a person was crucified, no mercy was shown him. There is absolutely nothing loving about hanging naked on a cross usually for several days exposed to the elements, as well as wild animals and scavenger birds. Meanwhile, the individual was bleeding from appalling open wounds that attracted all types of flies and other insects. In addition, the one on the cross experienced horrible, unending pain from the nails driven into his hands and feet. Hanging on the cross caused unbelievable pain as one's shoulder are pulled out of their joints. Moreover, the position of the individual leaves him fighting for every breath from the increased pressure on his diaphragm. Many times people died from suffocation rather than the loss of blood. In brief, the cross was an instrument of public humiliation and torture used to kill another individual in the worst way imaginable. It was so horrible that it had been declare that no Roman citizen could ever be crucified. In contrast, for the follower of Christ the cross serves as a reminder of the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf at Calvary. He took upon himself the punishment we so richly deserve as he became sin for us that we might be forgiven all our sin. The cross shows us the length God would go to announce his love for all mankind. But it also declares how much a holy God hates sin. It cries out that all sin must be punished. It reminds us that as Jesus Christ died on the cross for us, he freely took upon himself the punishment we rightly desire because we have chosen to sin against a holy and righteous God. Carrying our cross, means we identify daily “with Christ in shame, suffering, and surrender to God's will.” As we bear our own cross, we die “to self, to our own plans and ambitions” “in order that others can be saved, helped, redeemed, restored.” There is within us a willingness to make sacrifices for the cause of Jesus Christ – even to the point of dying for him. As difficult as this idea may be to accept, if Christ is the first in our lives, we soon discover that no sacrifice is too great for our Lord’s sake – even in the arena of family relationships. The story is told that when James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the captain of the ship that had carried him there sought to turn him back by saying, “You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages.” Calvert's reply well demonstrates the cost of commitment: “We died before we came here.” My brother and sister in Christ, what price are you willing to pay? There is no higher price than to die for Jesus.