Following Jesus isn’t easy. For many who have grown up in the church or who have been in the church for a long time, that seems like a ridiculous statement. “Of course it’s easy! You hear the gospel, believe the gospel, and get saved. Easy.” Or “You read the Bible and do what it says. Easy.” However, when we read the Bible to figure out what we need to do, it often tells us to do things we don’t necessarily want to do. For example, when the rich man asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 18:18), Jesus told him to sell what he had, give to the poor, and follow him, but the man went away sad because he was very rich (Luke 18:22-23). Easy question, easy answer, not so easy life.
Perhaps the most significant thing we read in the Bible regarding what we need to do is found in Luke 9:23, when Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” As Jesus goes on in greater detail, it becomes clear that following him, that being a disciple of Jesus requires dying to oneself. Yes, the language is figurative, but the expectation is not. The issues that are at stake are life and death, possibly one’s physical life and death, like we would see with those Christian martyrs who have been killed specifically because of their faith in Christ, but certainly eternal life and death.
There’s really no wiggle room here. The cross is a matter of life and death. The foundation of the gospel is Jesus’ actual, factual, historical, physical death on a cross, which Paul stated emphatically when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:3, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” Without Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, there is no salvation; again, Paul stated emphatically, “By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:2). First importance. Hold firmly. Life or death.
This is where Jesus is calling his disciples. Because of his death, Jesus’ disciples can find life, but first we must follow, even dying to ourselves. This is how Paul recognized himself in Christ; he wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). That’s tough: “I no longer live.” Paul died to himself, joining with Jesus in the cross. How did he do that? He answered the question this way in Romans 6:3-5:
Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.
Just as Jesus died on the cross to forgive our sins, we join Jesus to be forgiven of our sins, dying to ourselves through repentant faith in the symbolic act of baptism. Just as Jesus’ death on the cross is an actual, factual, spiritual reality, so our death with Christ in baptism is also our actual, factual, spiritual death, burial, and resurrection into Christ.
It might be simple, but dying with Christ, dying to ourselves is not easy. It’s certainly not a matter of “dunked and done.” Jesus called his disciples to take up their cross daily. That’s every day. It’s an ongoing, never-ending personal sacrifice of what we want, what we say, what we do, and who we think we are so that God can make us who he is transforming us to be. If you want to be a disciple of Jesus, follow Jesus to the cross daily and die to yourself to be with him forever, starting right now and continuing into eternity.