Pickup your cross daily and follow Christ. I don’t know that anyone has every point blank told me to do that, but it would probably do each of us some good.  But what is our cross?  In this post, we are going to look at this verse in Matthew chapter 16 where Jesus is telling us how to renew our minds and live a life worth living. 

Our Text

24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Matthew 16:24-26 KJV

Not My Will, but God’s Will

Jesus himself said, the things that I do I only do because they’re what I see my father do.  We are to be the same way.  When we pickup “our cross”, we are talking about the cross between our wants and our Lord’s wants. 

If Jesus is your Lord, then you pickup your cross every day by doing what the Bible says.  That is what we are called to do. 

What Jesus then tells us is that this is how we save our soul.

The “Soul”

Now before we get things confused, it’s important to know that the soul is not the same as our spirit.  Many people get the spirit and the soul confused.  In fact, the difference is very clear in scripture.  

The spirit – the true you – is alive unto God when you get “born again” (aka saved).  This is the part that changes and is alive unto God, but what about your soul?

The soul is our mind, will and emotions. These are the things we are told to renew in Romans 12:2. But how?

Renewing the mind is the same thing as saving the soul. 

Saving the Soul = Mind Renewed = Pickup your Cross Daily

To pick up your cross daily and follow Jesus is to renew your mind.  Jesus is telling His disciples that to follow after what Jesus tells us to do is the only way to live a happy and successful life.  It all starts with following what the Word of God tells us.  

To save the soul is to renew the mind.  These are also the same thing.  We aren’t talking about salvation from hell.  We are talking about living a fruitful life here on earth.

It’s up to each one of us to renew our mind by doing all that we know to do every day to follow what God has for us. It starts with the little things.

For more posts, check out here.