*** For those who arrived here from Living Magazine, this is the complete article, "Deciphering the Divine"***
His ministry lasted three years – that’s over 1,000 days of life-giving, soul-saving, absolutely perfect divine truths pouring out of His mouth – yet we have only four relatively short gospel accounts of His life. You could read them in one day if you wanted to. The last sentence of John’s Gospel says that if the full account of His ministry were written in detail, the world could not contain all the writings. Most of His words we do not know. Like the souls of men, only a few made the cut.
Under the guidance and inspiration of God Himself, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John chose very carefully every word, and every sentence, and every story. Each word was hand selected by the divine Author just for us. He would give us no less, and no more, than was required. The words He chose were of absolute importance – of vital necessity!
So how should we respond when we see one phrase repeated five different times? Should we ponder all the beautiful and priceless sayings of His that were left out so that we could read one particular phrase over, and over, and over, and over, and over, with only slight variations? How important must these words be?
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. (Luke 14:26–27)
And the one who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. (Matthew 10:38)
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Matthew 16:24)
And He summoned the crowd together with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Mark 8:34)
And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23)
“Follow me!” The commentary of my study Bible says that those two words were the most repeated words out of His mouth during His entire ministry. But they weren’t enough.
He knew we would hear those two words and ask the reasonable and logical question, Where are You going? Our finite minds want expectations. If I choose to follow You, what route are we taking, and what will our destination be? He isn’t required to answer the question, but He does! He sets the expectation and clears up all confusion about where the journey ends when He adds those words “take up his cross.”
We must come to terms with what those words – the cross – really mean! At the time, the cross was an instrument of death. And not just death: It was an instrument of a cruel and painful death, filled with suffering. The victims would beg for their last breath to come.
Do you think He was unaware of where He was headed when He said those words? No, He knew exactly where He was going.
He contemplated the narrow and lonely road He would take to get there. He thought about the beating He would endure. He considered the thorns sinking into His scalp, the blood running down His face. He imagined the beard being ripped from His cheeks. He thought about His own creation spitting on Him and mocking Him. He reflected on the exposed bones, and the mangled flesh hanging from His body after the flogging. He imagined how it would feel when the nails plunged deeper and deeper with each blow of the hammer. In His mind’s eye, He saw Himself, hanging there as a spectacle for all to see, stripped of His clothing, humiliated, and gasping for each breath. And perhaps worst of all – He considered the loneliness.
And after pondering all those things, He then did the unthinkable: The good, and compassionate, and loving One turned to all those surrounding Him, and said the words no one wanted to hear:
“And the one who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.” (Matthew 10:38)
What do you think He meant by those words? Was He exaggerating for effect? Do you think this was some pithy little phrase He sprinkled in at times to add a bit of drama to the narrative? Did He forget that He was supposed to be my substitute – why is there a cross for me? Or perhaps He said it so that, 2,000 years later, it would make for a great Facebook post!
I think it’s reasonable for us to conclude that He gave us this phrase five different times because He knew it had eternal implications. I think He knew we might not want to hear it the first four times. I think He picked “the cross” because there was no more brutal imagery He could use, knowing that He Himself was getting ready to paint the picture for us, right before our eyes. He would demonstrate the life of a “Christian” for us, so we would never shake the bloody image from our rebellious minds.
For the few who are willing to hear His words, His call couldn’t be clearer: “I’m headed to the top of a hill called Golgotha. Do you want to join me? Great! Grab that cross over there and let’s go. Let’s suffer and die together!”
Those words were meant to become the rallying cry of all who would dare to say, “Yes, Master, I have counted the cost, and I will follow.” They were a war cry. He was summoning His troops to the battlefield: “Come! Suffer and die with me on this battlefield! If you do not, you are not worthy of me. You cannot be my disciple.”
Are these words of mine preaching a message you have never heard? Do you mean to tell me this is not part of the “good news” you hear on Sunday mornings? No, for most it is not. Most have heard some other rallying cry! These words don’t preach so well. They are too serious – too somber! How will the preacher begin his sermon with a witty one-liner, and then move on to death and suffering? What will he do with a message that elicits no laughter? Is he courageous enough to endure the awkward and deafening silence when he tells the sheep that slaughter awaits them?
No, the average American pastor cannot endure these things. So, what does he do? He chooses some other call. He chooses one that does not conflict with the dream homes and bucket lists of those sitting in his pews. He cowers! But do not worry, he will stand before his Master and give an account of every word he failed to speak, every word he spoke, and the way in which he spoke them! He will stand naked, and ashamed, as he watches all his great works go up in flames! (1 Corinthians 3:13)
But will the congregation of this cowardly shepherd have a scapegoat as they stand before Him on that day? Will they be able to say, “Lord, our shepherd was unfaithful! He led us astray. He made a different call! Lord, he was not courageous enough to tell us about the hard parts!” Will this excuse suffice on that day? No, it will not. Surely the Lord will answer back, “You had my Word, but you did not read it. And when you did read it, you did not hear it. Sodom and Gomorrah did not have my Word; where are they now? You chose not to hear My call.”
I know these words (of His) I write are difficult. We do not want to believe them. So, we look to our left and to our right, at the rest of the “Christians” around us, and we say to ourselves, They can’t all be wrong! What am I missing? Surely we aren’t supposed to accept His words at face value! No one does that! That’s too extreme. It’s too radical!
Those who ask themselves these things have made a grave mistake: They compare themselves against themselves. The mistake is so obviously foolish – yet so common! Let’s take a moment and compare ourselves with the Word that will judge you…
Paul heard the call when he wrote to the Romans:
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. (Romans 8:16–17)
That little “if” – why does it have to be there? What will you do with it? Will you gloss over it? Will you act like you don’t see it? Will you tell yourself, “I probably need to study that in its context to see what it means?”
Paul heard the call again when he wrote to young Timothy:
Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. (2 Timothy 3:12)
He did it again! He inserts one pesky word to ruin the whole thing – ALL! It changes everything. It’s like a splinter in our flesh – it annoys. It hurts. Yet it must be dealt with. So, what will we do with it? Will we tell ourselves that it doesn’t apply to us because we live in America, in 2024, where Christianity is accepted? We will have to throw out that pesky three-letter word if we do that. Maybe we should look up the Greek definition for that little word to see what it really means?
Is it possible we should ask ourselves a different question: “Lord, am I suffering persecution?” It was one of the many difficult questions I asked during my dark and beautiful season of self-examination, when I finally began to pluck the splinters I had avoided for so long.
I think Paul, once again, heard the call as he penned these words to the Philippians:
For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer on His behalf…” (Philippians 1:29)
What? Granted?? What is this extreme and cult-like version of Christianity Paul was writing of? I must be reading it wrong! Surely he isn’t telling those Philippian believers that their suffering was some type of gracious gift – all wrapped up with a giant red bow on it – and handed to them by their Father! But he was! Is this the message you have heard? Do you want that gift?
Is it even possible to gratefully receive a “gift of suffering”? Those disciples in Acts are crying out to you now, from the pages of Scripture, with the answer to your query. Here is what they did immediately after having the flesh of their backs ripped to shreds from a flogging:
They went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name. (Acts 5:41)
They rejoiced!! … in the gift they had been given. They were honored that they had been considered worthy enough to suffer shame for His name during their few brief moments on this Earth – the only time in all of eternity where that opportunity would exist.
I could go on and on from the pages of Scripture, but sometimes I fear that we have come to believe that those saints were above us; we do not think of them as real people. They are like wax figures in our imaginations – characters in our mind from some ancient fictional story that does not relate or apply to us! So, maybe it would be more effective to consider some more recent examples …
On April 19th, 1945, Dietrich Boenhoeffer received the gift of martyrdom. He was a man who heard the call. He became well known for many things, not the least of which was his belief in what it means to be a follower of Christ. He summed it up with these simple words:
“When Christ calls a man, He bids him, come and die!”
Or maybe we should consider the story of Jim Elliott, and the words of the godly woman he left behind …
In 1956, Jim Elliott and four other missionaries received their gifts! They were martyred by a group of Auca Indians while trying to bring the Gospel to them. After His death, his wife Elisabeth wrote of his story in her well-known book Shadow of the Almighty. In the preface, she summed up the call of Christ with these challenging words:
“He and the other men with whom he died were hailed as heroes, ‘martyrs.’ I do not approve. Nor would they have approved. Is the distinction between living for Christ and dying for Him, after all, so great? Is not the second the logical conclusion of the first? … Was it [Jim’s life] extraordinary? I offer these pages so that the reader may decide for himself. If his answer is yes – if he finds herein the ‘stamp of Christ,’ and decides that this is extraordinary – what shall we say of the state of Christendom?”
Jim heard the call. His wife Elisabeth heard the call. She did not view her husband as some hero of Christianity like most did. No, he was just a Christian. She did not look at Jim’s Christianity as some radical and extreme version. No, it was simply Christianity. There was only one version.
Jim’s story was very simple: There was a day in his life when Jesus approached the throne of his heart and, I think with a bit of a grin on His face, turned to him and said, “Hey, Jim, you see that heavy wooden cross lying on the ground? I want you to throw it over your shoulders and follow me. We’re gonna trudge up that hill so we can suffer and die together! How’s that sound?”
As Jim pondered the question, he silently thought to himself those words he is now famous for: He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.
Jim gazed at the glory and the beauty of the One making the call, grinned back at Him, and answered, “Let’s go!”
My friend, this is the call of Christ: Come and die! It is the only call He makes. Am I saying that this “call” means that every real Christian is going to become a literal martyr for Christ? No, He distributes different types of gifts to each of His children. But know that He said this: “He who seeks to save his life will lose it. And he who loses his life for My sake will find it”( Luke 17:33). Sidenote: That was the second most repeated phrase out of His mouth!
All who hear the call will lose their life! Because it is a call that destroys all of our worldly ambitions and goals. It is a call that drains bank accounts and empties 401Ks. It is a call that radically alters seemingly successful career paths and abolishes the word “retirement” from one’s vocabulary. It is a call that nails to a cross all those “inalienable rights” we think we are entitled to in this life. It is a call that violently shakes the foundations of security and stability we have built on the sinking sand of this world system. It is a call that says this American Dream we feast on – with some “Christianity” sprinkled on top for flavor – will become an eternal nightmare. It is a call to a very difficult and lonely road with few other travelers! Because, after all, who would choose to hear that call?
Is this the call you have heard? Have you, like Jim, beheld the glory and the beauty of the One making the call? Have you gone beyond Yes, Lord, I’m willing to give everything for You if you ask me! Have you gone beyond Lord, how much is enough, just tell me? and now ventured into the territory of “Lord, how much must I keep? Lord, it will never be enough; I beg you to let me lay it all down! Give me my gift.”
As I talk to many believers today, I find myself grieved, wondering how great the deception may possibly be! When I speak of this “version” of Christianity, I see blank faces. I hear those same words, over and over and over…
“You don’t have to be so extreme.”
“It’s a bit over the top.”
“When will it be enough?”
“Aren’t you taking things a bit too far?”
Then, at some point in the conversation, I’m often asked that question I have come to despise…
“Mike, where is the line?”
What?? A line? What is this line you speak of?
I will ask you, as the Lord asked Adam on that tragic day, “Who told you there was a line?” An enemy has done this! Like Adam, you have been deceived!
When I speak of these things, you tell me I am living under the Law. Hogwash! You are the one living under the Law. How do you not see it? You are looking for a line! That’s the Law. The line is the Law. You’re literally asking me for a Law to follow … so that you can adjust your life accordingly.
I will not answer the question. I’m not even able to answer that question! Why? Because I have been set free from the Law. I used to ask those foolish questions myself. But now I have been set free! The question is now illogical. The one who has found the treasure hidden in the field sells all he has – out of joy (Matthew 13:44); he cannot comprehend such a question!
If you still think I’m crazy – if you are still not convinced – then I will ask you …
Where was the line for Paul when he was flogged five times? Was it number six?
Where was the line for Abraham as the knife loomed over his son’s throat?
Where was the line in the tenth chapter of Hebrews for those believers who accepted joyfully the seizure of their property? Joyfully! One word ruins it again! How did they do this? The scriptures answer the question; they “knew they had a better possession and a lasting one” (Hebrews 10:34). They had found the treasure in the field!
Where was the line for those saints in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews? There are many we could choose from. Why don’t we go with the ones who were tortured and sawn in two (Hebrews 11:35, 37)?
Where was the line for those saints in the early Christian Church who were fed to the lions in the Coliseum? Did the lions cross the line, or did the saints?
As I write these words, there sits on my desk next to me a book, The Martyrs Mirror: It’s nearly three inches thick and over 1,100 pages of small print. It tells the stories of seventeen centuries of Christian martyrdom since the time of Christ. Where was the line for these hundreds of thousands of saints? Where was the line as they were boiling in water and burning at the stake?
Can you take a step back and see it? There were more than seventeen hundred years since His blood was spilled, where Christians had never heard of any line! But now, all of a sudden, we have come up with a new and improved version. A version that will be a bit more palatable and popular. A version with plenty of jokes and laughter, and maybe even some popcorn on Sunday mornings. We have a version that attracts the masses. A version that would not dare go too far, or be too serious. We now have “Christianity with a line!” It’s a version we were warned about, being promoted by silly shepherds, making a false call, and then crying out “It’s a revival – an awakening” when the deceived masses come running! Is it possible that you, like I was, have been deceived as to what it means to follow Christ?
My friend, I beg you to consider His words to those “Christians” at Laodicea in the third chapter of Revelation. He called their version of Christianity “lukewarm.” He told these “believers” He was going to vomit them out of His mouth (Revelation 3:15–16). I wonder if they too had been deceived into believing there was some type of “line”involved in all of this?
Do you think my words are dark and morbid? Do you think I’m painting some portrait of Christianity with a hopeless and miserable shade of gray? Do you say, “Mike, you are wrong! The Gospel is ‘good news’ and I see none of it in this picture you are painting!”
You couldn’t be further from the truth! I have checked my canvas and I find no gray! I see the richest and most vibrant paint I have ever gazed upon. It is a paint that I never knew existed for most of my “Christian” life. The colors on my palette are not of this world. I find myself afraid there may only be one conclusion:The one who speaks of lines – who sees shades of gray on a dark and depressing portrait – has not drunk from the fountain. He has not feasted at the table!
Do you say, “Mike, once again, you are wrong! Christ was our substitute. He died so we wouldn’t have to. Mike, you have missed the whole point of the Gospel!”
Oh, how the strange and peculiar paradoxes of Christianity continue to pile high! He hanged there as our substitute. He took the punishment for us, so that we would not have to! His mercy to us overflowed. Yet what does the passage in Romans say?
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
(Romans 12:1)
There’s the paradox! Do you see it? In the light of His overflowing mercy toward us – the ones who have tasted – the only reasonable response is to present our entire bodies – our entire lives and beings – on the altar! As living sacrifices!
Make no mistake about it, when the wedding ceremony begins, you will see a bridegroom and a bride, who fought side by side on the field of battle, whose love for each other was so deep and insatiable that they suffered and died for one another. As each of them gazes into the other’s eyes, there will be no question about the quality or the purity of their love for one another. No, it was tested and found to be genuine! It went through the fire and emerged on the other side – pure and undefiled. You know how a love story works! Do you have some better ending (or should I say beginning)? Do you still see gray in my picture? Is this divine romance I speak of still morbid and miserable?
If it is, I fear that you, like I once was, have been deceived by some other call. I fear that maybe you have not found the hidden treasure! That maybe you have not entered through that narrow gate that is only found by few (Matthew 7:13-14).
Why would I say such a thing?
Because, if you tasted the goodness of those living waters, you would see yet another paradox: You will give up everything as you suffer and hang on that cross; The price you will pay is EVERYTHING – NO LINE! And yet, at the same time, it will cost you nothing! The hopes and dreams you will lay down – the things you will give up – they are worthless! All your “sacrifices” become completely insignificant as you behold the glory He reveals to you! As Paul said, they are “dung” – feces – manure! (Philippians 3:8)
Hear the call today. Hear His war cry. Come join Him on the field of battle. Suffering and death are coming to you either way! Repent from worthless sins and Christianity with lines! Turn to Him and make that beautiful exchange! Hand over your dung for His eternal life!
“The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18)
COME AND DIE, MY FRIEND … You will never live until you do!