Follow Christ

“If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, 

and take up his cross, and follow Me.” 

Matthew 16:24

Perhaps you’ve read this verse and wondered, as I have; “So, what does it really mean to follow Christ?”

As this verse indicates, self-denial and unconditional acceptance of the will of God are crucial aspects to following Christ, but they seem here to pave the way for the actual act of following. Thus the question remains, what does it mean to follow Christ? The answer is found in the next verse:

“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it.” (v.25)

This may seem a paradoxical statement at first, but notice that word will. We often use this word to communicate whether or not something is going to happen. For example, we might say, “Tomorrow I will go to the store” or, “Will she clean her room?”

This is the sense in which I have always understood the word in Matthew 16:25, but that is not the only meaning of the word. When I looked it up in my Bible app with Strong’s and Thayer, I found that the Greek word here is used in the sense of human will. It is not dealing with future action, but personal decision.

Christians who live their lives for themselves, who will, or choose, to “save” up their lives by protecting and preserving their time, talent, and resources for their own use will inevitably find themselves miserable. A Christian living for him or herself will always lack the fulfillment, joy, peace, and hope Christ intended for all believers to have. Such Christians will “lose” the blessed life God designed for them, because they refuse to let go of their own plans and wishes.

The self-focused Christian life is necessarily a lonely life, because it is a life lived in disobedience (and thus out of close fellowship) to God. It is a life lived in unconfessed pride and rebellion against God’s will, thus it is a life lived under conviction, without a right relationship with God. That is a lonely place, indeed.

When lived for ourselves, the life we hoard up for ourselves will inevitably “lost” (a Greek word meaning destroyed, marred, put to death, or rendered useless.) We are told in Deuteronomy 8:5 that,

“as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.”

God does not let His children continue in sin unhindered. Often, in order to get our eyes off ourselves and back onto Him, He must destroy the life we’ve built for ourselves, the life that keeps us away from fellowship with Him.

But aren’t you glad Christ turned the statement around and told us the rest? If the life “saved” for oneself is a lonely, miserable life, the life poured out for Christ is just the opposite. After all, it was Christ who said it is more blessed to give than to receive. (Acts 20:35)

When we stop fighting to protect our lives from the God-ordained “intrusions” and “interruptions” He sends, we learn that whatever we sacrifice in obedience to the will of God is amply rewarded. We learn lessons of faith and develop Christlike character far easier when we are not resisting the circumstances and truths God is trying to use to change us more and more into His image each day.

So, what does following Christ mean in our daily lives? Simply the laying down of our lives for the sake of Christ, finding in Him life more abundant than we can ever imagine.

The practical details will be different for each individual but will inevitably involve many moment-by-moment decisions to live for God rather than self. Just as Christ humbled Himself and laid down His life for us, so we follow Him by humbly laying down our lives in obedience to God.

"The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy; I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."

John 10:10