And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
No one can be His disciple without bearing his cross and coming after Him in self-denial and willing obedience, whatever sacrifice that involves. He spoke this to the great multitude following Him so that none would begin under false hopes of worldly honor and wealth without counting the cost, as a builder counts the cost of a tower or a king the strength for war. Counting that cost means settling beforehand to put loyalty and obedience to God above every earthly tie and claim, forsaking father, mother, family, friends, possessions, and even life itself when faithfulness requires it. Bearing the cross therefore breaks former harmony with the ways, pleasures, pride and ambition of the world, turning the aims of life away from self-pleasing and from every excuse for disobedience. It is taken up daily in faithful service, hardship, reproach and painful self-denial for His sake, and the cross so borne is the pledge of a crown of glory in God's kingdom.
Words and Context
Jesus addressed these words to a great multitude so that no one would begin to follow Him under a false impression or with expectation of worldly honor and wealth. He did offer rest to weary souls, yet discipleship still required bearing the cross and coming after Him. Bearing the cross is the token of discipleship, for following Christ requires self-denial and acceptance of the sacrifice involved. To seek to evade the cross is incompatible with being His disciple, and rising above the religious standard of the Christian world to meet this requirement takes courage and independence.
Coming to the gospel feast requires bearing the cross and coming after Christ, and without this no one can be His disciple. This stands in contrast to the excuses men urge for not coming. The requirement is then explained by counting the cost before building a tower or going to war, meaning a person should consider whether the undertaking can be completed before beginning it. Those called to serve the crucified Redeemer must therefore count the cost and enter the work knowing its conditions of self-denial, sacrifice, and suffering.
The same principle of counting the cost applies to practical enterprises, so that a sanitarium building project must not be launched hastily or on suppositions and assumptions without considering where the necessary funds to complete it will come from. Being Christ's disciple requires bearing the cross while following Him. The cross a person lifts and bears after Jesus is a pledge of a crown of glory in God's kingdom.
Cost of Loyalty
Bearing the cross is an experience like crucifixion that breaks former harmony with the ways and customs of the world, with union with those who enjoy worldly pleasures and seek pride and ambition, and with confederacy with the disobedient who excuse living in sin and sustain one another in unrighteousness, changing the current of thought and the aims of life. It is practicing the self-denial shown in Christ's life and coming after Him in willing, glad obedience to God's requirements. This requires hating every action, principle of disobedience, and violation of God's holy law, and despising every opposing influence of word or action whether in father, mother, wife, children, brethren, sisters, friends, or in one's own mind, heart and life. Everything savoring of excuse must be turned from with decision, the excuses of others for disobedience must not draw anyone from obedience, and everything leading to seek personal advantage must be repudiated as a temptation of Satan.
No one can be Christ's disciple without forsaking all for Him when required, including father, mother, friends, and even his own life if necessary. Natural inclination never leads to this but gratifies self, so following the inclination of one's own mind is unsafe. Only a heart subdued by grace and subject to God's will makes every opposing inclination give way before the Saviour's claims, just as Christ left His majesty, splendor, glory and titles to come to earth to die as man's sacrifice. Because the heart is naturally inclined to the wrong and is deceitful above all things, it must be trained, educated and disciplined to run in the right channel and do what God approves irrespective of inclination. Bending the will into the heavenly channel is done only by God's grace with wakeful vigilance and firm reliance, subjecting inclinations to the Spirit's dictation and the Saviour's will.
Being His disciple requires putting obedience to God above every earthly relationship or consideration, even when that means forsaking close family and sacrificing one's life. Refusing to do God's Word for such reasons fails to bear the cross and makes discipleship impossible, and accepting that cost is part of being a doer of the Word. This calls for valuing Christ above every person and centering faith, hope, and all in Him as substitute and surety. Loyalty to Him must stand above family, home, land, and every other claim, with no conditions set for serving Him. Disciples stand ready to go wherever God's Spirit or providence indicates best service, and use abilities and possessions as entrusted gifts for His work, accepting the hardship and sacrifice borne for the truth which may require forsaking even the hopes and claims of family in order to obey.
For some this means leaving family and friends when they would hinder the service God requires, while others may take their families with them. The call to put God's will and love first does not lessen love for wife, children, or home, for family members may join in service, pray for the worker, and strengthen one another, yet all may be called to do and suffer for Christ. Taking up the cross means accepting shame and reproach rather than seeking the world's honor, praise, love, and approval, surrendering them when obedience demands it. Turning away to pursue worldly pride and ambition means turning from Jesus and God, and worldly tastes and opinions then prevent understanding spiritual things. Those who truly love Christ regard giving up all for Him as a privilege because He sacrificed Himself to seek and save the lost, making every sacrifice and climbing heavenward on Christ, the ladder.
Leaving the world's ways, living separately in character, and obeying God's commandments even when obedience brings hardship or business inconvenience, as Sabbath observance may, belongs to bearing the cross. Temporal circumstances and sacrifices must not outweigh eternal interests, and the cost of obedience shrinks when a person decides to obey God at any cost. Professing Christianity without this willingness has little power to restrain people from worldly pleasures. Bearing the cross means accepting self-denial and sacrifice, giving up the claims of even the dearest relationships when they conflict with loyalty to Christ, denying self and the world, remaining on Christ's side, and bearing opposition without turning back. This requires a fixed purpose to endure trials, scorn, ridicule, and even bodily harm for His name, not seeking ease or earthly advantage. One who gives up obedience because others mock him or who abandons truth and righteousness fails to endure the test, cannot perfect the faith that works by love and purifies the soul, and is not fit to be called Christ's disciple.
Daily Cross-Bearing
Discipleship means bearing the cross and coming after Christ, which is accepting the cost of obedience to God even when it conflicts with the wishes or example of family, friends, or rulers, since earthly relationships never excuse disobedience. It calls for moral accountability rather than living to please oneself. Following Christ in this way requires denying self and accepting the sacrifice and faithful service His life calls for. It means working with Him and remaining faithful to every trust, firm in principle and steadfast in doing good. It means accepting self-denial, hardship, and painful trials for His sake, and giving God one's best, well-cultivated abilities in faithful service, since crippled or half-hearted service does not meet the demands of discipleship.
This daily self-denial includes resisting selfish indulgence and self-indulgence, choosing simplicity and economy rather than costly clothes and furnishings. It shows genuine identification with Christ and devotion to His work. It is applied to serving others by sharing health knowledge and seeking those who are lost. Love for those Christ died to save leads to denying self, taking up the cross, and self-sacrifice in seeking the lost. Pride and desire for display cannot remain in a heart devoted to that work. Bearing the cross includes the painful discipline of keeping silent when provoked, since patient silence can overcome evil more effectively than angry words.
Union with Christ by living faith costs something and requires painful detachment as well as attachment. Christ first chose us, paying an infinite price for redemption, and the true believer chooses Christ as first and last and best in everything in an enduring union, while every other union must perish. It is a union of utter dependence entered into by a proud being, requiring a sense of need of Christ's atoning blood, a change of heart, and submission of one's will to God's will. It involves struggle with outward and internal obstacles in which pride, selfishness, vanity, worldliness, sin in all its forms, and cherished idols must be overcome. Many find the Christian life hard and are fickle and variable because they try to attach themselves to Christ without first detaching from those idols.
Meeting the conditions of discipleship requires humble submission to God, denying self, and following Him in obedient, self-denying humility, come life or death. This means breaking wrong habits in physical and spiritual life, overcoming indulgence of appetite, love of dress, thirst for outward adorning, selfish cravings, repining, unbelief and self-indulgent excuses, refusing sympathy that would keep one captive to Satan, talking and practicing faith, being careful in words, and not hindering the spiritual advancement of others, especially a husband, but helping him by humble example. Those who meet them are received, forgiven of all sins, blessed, transformed in character, given Christ's peace, made useful and happy now and forever, reaping a harvest of confidence and humble trust, while those who refuse remain unhappy, captive, and miserable to themselves and others. The cross represents the hardship and loss that may come with taking a stand for the truth. Those who fear losing their livelihood or support for their families may shrink from commitment even when convinced of the truth. The verse applies to turning sinners from cherished errors into disciples who follow Christ.
No one can be His disciple without bearing his cross and coming after Him in self-denial and willing obedience, whatever sacrifice that involves. He spoke this to the great multitude following Him so that none would begin under false hopes of worldly honor and wealth without counting the cost, as a builder counts the cost of a tower or a king the strength for war. Counting that cost means settling beforehand to put loyalty and obedience to God above every earthly tie and claim, forsaking father, mother, family, friends, possessions, and even life itself when faithfulness requires it. Bearing the cross therefore breaks former harmony with the ways, pleasures, pride and ambition of the world, turning the aims of life away from self-pleasing and from every excuse for disobedience. It is taken up daily in faithful service, hardship, reproach and painful self-denial for His sake, and the cross so borne is the pledge of a crown of glory in God's kingdom.
Words and Context
Jesus addressed these words to a great multitude so that no one would begin to follow Him under a false impression or with expectation of worldly honor and wealth. He did offer rest to weary souls, yet discipleship still required bearing the cross and coming after Him. Bearing the cross is the token of discipleship, for following Christ requires self-denial and acceptance of the sacrifice involved. To seek to evade the cross is incompatible with being His disciple, and rising above the religious standard of the Christian world to meet this requirement takes courage and independence.
Coming to the gospel feast requires bearing the cross and coming after Christ, and without this no one can be His disciple. This stands in contrast to the excuses men urge for not coming. The requirement is then explained by counting the cost before building a tower or going to war, meaning a person should consider whether the undertaking can be completed before beginning it. Those called to serve the crucified Redeemer must therefore count the cost and enter the work knowing its conditions of self-denial, sacrifice, and suffering.
The same principle of counting the cost applies to practical enterprises, so that a sanitarium building project must not be launched hastily or on suppositions and assumptions without considering where the necessary funds to complete it will come from. Being Christ's disciple requires bearing the cross while following Him. The cross a person lifts and bears after Jesus is a pledge of a crown of glory in God's kingdom.
Cost of Loyalty
Bearing the cross is an experience like crucifixion that breaks former harmony with the ways and customs of the world, with union with those who enjoy worldly pleasures and seek pride and ambition, and with confederacy with the disobedient who excuse living in sin and sustain one another in unrighteousness, changing the current of thought and the aims of life. It is practicing the self-denial shown in Christ's life and coming after Him in willing, glad obedience to God's requirements. This requires hating every action, principle of disobedience, and violation of God's holy law, and despising every opposing influence of word or action whether in father, mother, wife, children, brethren, sisters, friends, or in one's own mind, heart and life. Everything savoring of excuse must be turned from with decision, the excuses of others for disobedience must not draw anyone from obedience, and everything leading to seek personal advantage must be repudiated as a temptation of Satan.
No one can be Christ's disciple without forsaking all for Him when required, including father, mother, friends, and even his own life if necessary. Natural inclination never leads to this but gratifies self, so following the inclination of one's own mind is unsafe. Only a heart subdued by grace and subject to God's will makes every opposing inclination give way before the Saviour's claims, just as Christ left His majesty, splendor, glory and titles to come to earth to die as man's sacrifice. Because the heart is naturally inclined to the wrong and is deceitful above all things, it must be trained, educated and disciplined to run in the right channel and do what God approves irrespective of inclination. Bending the will into the heavenly channel is done only by God's grace with wakeful vigilance and firm reliance, subjecting inclinations to the Spirit's dictation and the Saviour's will.
Being His disciple requires putting obedience to God above every earthly relationship or consideration, even when that means forsaking close family and sacrificing one's life. Refusing to do God's Word for such reasons fails to bear the cross and makes discipleship impossible, and accepting that cost is part of being a doer of the Word. This calls for valuing Christ above every person and centering faith, hope, and all in Him as substitute and surety. Loyalty to Him must stand above family, home, land, and every other claim, with no conditions set for serving Him. Disciples stand ready to go wherever God's Spirit or providence indicates best service, and use abilities and possessions as entrusted gifts for His work, accepting the hardship and sacrifice borne for the truth which may require forsaking even the hopes and claims of family in order to obey.
For some this means leaving family and friends when they would hinder the service God requires, while others may take their families with them. The call to put God's will and love first does not lessen love for wife, children, or home, for family members may join in service, pray for the worker, and strengthen one another, yet all may be called to do and suffer for Christ. Taking up the cross means accepting shame and reproach rather than seeking the world's honor, praise, love, and approval, surrendering them when obedience demands it. Turning away to pursue worldly pride and ambition means turning from Jesus and God, and worldly tastes and opinions then prevent understanding spiritual things. Those who truly love Christ regard giving up all for Him as a privilege because He sacrificed Himself to seek and save the lost, making every sacrifice and climbing heavenward on Christ, the ladder.
Leaving the world's ways, living separately in character, and obeying God's commandments even when obedience brings hardship or business inconvenience, as Sabbath observance may, belongs to bearing the cross. Temporal circumstances and sacrifices must not outweigh eternal interests, and the cost of obedience shrinks when a person decides to obey God at any cost. Professing Christianity without this willingness has little power to restrain people from worldly pleasures. Bearing the cross means accepting self-denial and sacrifice, giving up the claims of even the dearest relationships when they conflict with loyalty to Christ, denying self and the world, remaining on Christ's side, and bearing opposition without turning back. This requires a fixed purpose to endure trials, scorn, ridicule, and even bodily harm for His name, not seeking ease or earthly advantage. One who gives up obedience because others mock him or who abandons truth and righteousness fails to endure the test, cannot perfect the faith that works by love and purifies the soul, and is not fit to be called Christ's disciple.
Daily Cross-Bearing
Discipleship means bearing the cross and coming after Christ, which is accepting the cost of obedience to God even when it conflicts with the wishes or example of family, friends, or rulers, since earthly relationships never excuse disobedience. It calls for moral accountability rather than living to please oneself. Following Christ in this way requires denying self and accepting the sacrifice and faithful service His life calls for. It means working with Him and remaining faithful to every trust, firm in principle and steadfast in doing good. It means accepting self-denial, hardship, and painful trials for His sake, and giving God one's best, well-cultivated abilities in faithful service, since crippled or half-hearted service does not meet the demands of discipleship.
This daily self-denial includes resisting selfish indulgence and self-indulgence, choosing simplicity and economy rather than costly clothes and furnishings. It shows genuine identification with Christ and devotion to His work. It is applied to serving others by sharing health knowledge and seeking those who are lost. Love for those Christ died to save leads to denying self, taking up the cross, and self-sacrifice in seeking the lost. Pride and desire for display cannot remain in a heart devoted to that work. Bearing the cross includes the painful discipline of keeping silent when provoked, since patient silence can overcome evil more effectively than angry words.
Union with Christ by living faith costs something and requires painful detachment as well as attachment. Christ first chose us, paying an infinite price for redemption, and the true believer chooses Christ as first and last and best in everything in an enduring union, while every other union must perish. It is a union of utter dependence entered into by a proud being, requiring a sense of need of Christ's atoning blood, a change of heart, and submission of one's will to God's will. It involves struggle with outward and internal obstacles in which pride, selfishness, vanity, worldliness, sin in all its forms, and cherished idols must be overcome. Many find the Christian life hard and are fickle and variable because they try to attach themselves to Christ without first detaching from those idols.
Meeting the conditions of discipleship requires humble submission to God, denying self, and following Him in obedient, self-denying humility, come life or death. This means breaking wrong habits in physical and spiritual life, overcoming indulgence of appetite, love of dress, thirst for outward adorning, selfish cravings, repining, unbelief and self-indulgent excuses, refusing sympathy that would keep one captive to Satan, talking and practicing faith, being careful in words, and not hindering the spiritual advancement of others, especially a husband, but helping him by humble example. Those who meet them are received, forgiven of all sins, blessed, transformed in character, given Christ's peace, made useful and happy now and forever, reaping a harvest of confidence and humble trust, while those who refuse remain unhappy, captive, and miserable to themselves and others. The cross represents the hardship and loss that may come with taking a stand for the truth. Those who fear losing their livelihood or support for their families may shrink from commitment even when convinced of the truth. The verse applies to turning sinners from cherished errors into disciples who follow Christ.