You Could Be Closer to God, But You Need to Stop Having Control
You could be so much closer to God, but you need to stop hesitating. Everything that God desires for you to do and to become is found in living the crucified life. That is a life laid down. A life that says, “God, whatever you want from me, you can have it. Whatever you ask me to do, I’ll do it.
And I know you want that. And so, this message, I believe, will challenge you to do just that. Don’t turn this off because I truly believe that God divinely appoints these moments. Lukeapter 9:21 21 Jesus warned his disciples not to tell anyone who he was. The son of man must suffer many terrible things. He said he will be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law.
He will be killed, but on the third day he will be raised from the dead. Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way. Take up your cross daily and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. If you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.
” And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed? Or what does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet lose his own soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my message, the son of man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in his glory and in the glory of the father and the holy angels.
I tell you the truth, some standing here right now will not die before they see the kingdom of God. And of course, we understand that the kingdom of God was established and is now ever expanding. And so you and I today as we examine those words of Jesus must check our hearts. Now, let me say something here because I think it’s important.
We have to be careful about putting religious filters over our eyes as we look at the scripture or the words of Jesus or the teachings of Paul the apostle. We have to be careful because religion twists truth. Religion will take something pure and godly. It will take something whole and helpful and it will twist it into something that becomes an unnecessary burden that causes you to live in this joyless experience of Christianity where you equate misery with holiness and you think that experiencing the love of God
or the joy of God is somehow a compromise. So I don’t want to I don’t want to go there. So I want I want to challenge you here in the way you see this because here’s how many Christians look at this verse, this challenge to take up your cross daily. They think that taking up your cross means I have to be miserable on this side of eternity.
