Taking up Your Cross Daily

We don't always have the eyes to see it. But if we could see it, we would recognize that among all the people who claim to be followers of Jesus, there are really only two kinds. There are those who burn with the life of God and who convey that light to people around them.

And then there are those who are often full of religion, religious insight, religious jargon, religious convictions, but who give forth the aroma of death. And here's the mystery. The people who give forth the aroma of life are continuously offering themselves up to death.

And the people who give forth the aroma of death are forever holding on to their own life, their dear life, their own point of view, their own ego, their own doctrinal position, their own convenience, and their own safety. I'd like to read from Ezekiel chapter 37, starting at verse 1. The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the valley. It was full of bones.

And he led me round among them. And behold, there were very many upon the valley, and, lo, they were very dry. And he said to me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.

Again he said to me, Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you.

And you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.

And as I looked, there were sinews on them, and flesh came upon them, and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man.

Say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me. And breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.

Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost. We are clean cut off.

Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves. O my people, I will bring you home into the land of Israel, and you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves. O my people, and I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.

And I will place you in your own land, and you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done it, says the Lord. Now you could say that this prophecy applies to the Israel of Ezekiel's day. That the Israel of Ezekiel's day, as we know, was destroyed.

The temple lay in ruins, and the people who weren't killed or didn't starve to death found themselves captives in a foreign land. And they were without hope. They said, Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone.

Now comes this prophecy through Ezekiel to Israel. The bones are going to be gathered together, and they're going to be restored, and they're going to be given breath, life, and they're going to be brought back on the land. And as we know, it all came to pass.

Or you could say that this prophecy really applies to the resurrection of the new Israel at the end of the age. The new Jerusalem that comes when history, as we understand it, has ended. Reading from Revelation 20, verse 4, Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom judgment was committed.

Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or on their hands. They came to life again and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life again till the thousand years were ended.

This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resurrection. Over such, the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and they shall reign with him a thousand years.

Now between the prophecy that was given to Israel of Ezekiel's day and the prophecy that can be applied to the new Israel at the end of the age, there is another application of this prophecy which is aimed at 1984. It's aimed at us, if we have the ears to hear and the eyes to see. If the bones are being gathered together even at this moment, that a people are being called out of Babylon into the new Israel at this very time.

A people who are being raised up with hearts circumcised to God. Lives totally and utterly and radically given over to God. People who have been raised are being raised from death into life by the power of the Spirit of God.

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied there was a noise and behold a rattling and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And as I looked there were sinews on them and flesh came upon them and skin covered them but there was no breath in them.

Then he said to me, prophesy to the breath. Prophesy son of man, say to the breath or the wind or the spirit. Thus says the Lord God, come from the four winds O breath and breathe upon these slain that they may live.

So I prophesied as he commanded me and breath came into them and they lived and stood on their feet an exceedingly great army. So in the midst of the wars and rumors of wars of the present moment, in the midst of prosperity in one place and famine in another and sometimes prosperity and famine in the same place, the bones are being brought together. Now.

And they are being formed. And they are being breathed in with the life of God. And they are being raised up by the spirit of God an exceedingly great army in order to take the gospel of the kingdom out over the earth perhaps for the last time.

And every single one of these people in this army walks on this earth with power because every single one of these people has been brought forth out of a grave. See, we're not talking about churchianity. We're not talking about Christendom.

We're not talking about respectable Christians living their innocuous lives. We're talking about people who manifest the resurrection life of Jesus every day because they themselves have been lifted out of their graves. Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.

Behold, they say, our bones are dried up and our hope is lost. We are clean cut off. Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people.

And I will bring you home into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and raise you up from your graves, O my people. And I will put my spirit within you and you shall live.

And I will place you in your own land. And then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and I have done it, says the Lord. I will open your graves and I will raise you out of your graves and I will fill you with life and I will bring you to your own land, which is my kingdom.

I will bring you back to me. Notice that in every instance in this prophecy, the initiative belongs to God. God is the one who brings the bones together.

God is the one who restores them, breathes life into them, sets them up on their feet, and sends them forth as an army. But nothing of this can happen. God can't do any of those things until the bones do one thing.

God will do all that, but the bones, before any of that can happen, have to die. From Luke 9, verse 22, Jesus is speaking. The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

And he said to all, if any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. I'm going to a cross to die. Now, if anyone wants to come after me, don't just sit around and read the Sermon on the Mount.

Deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me to death. If you are willing, and if you begin to do it, to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me to death, then you will be raised from the dead, not only in the next world, not only at the end of the age, but right here and right now. Now, God will take care of his part.

He'll gather the bones and he'll bring them together and he'll quicken them with his Spirit. He'll set them on their feet and send them forth. When we begin to do our part, our part is to die.

The bones won't come together until they're dead. The corpse won't come to life with the resurrection Spirit of God until it's really dead. Follow me to death, says the Lord, and I will then raise you from the dead by the power of my resurrection Spirit.

If anyone, if any man, woman, will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. Specifically, what does this mean? If any man would come after me, let him deny himself. Deny yourself.

Say no to yourself, which is to say that you go out to the valley of the dry bones, where all the other dry bones are, fall on your face before God, and with an act of will become one of them. Die. And when you do this, everything goes with it.

In other words, I go out to the valley of the dry bones and I don't just take my Sunday morning self. I go out there with my hope to the valley of the dry bones, and they die. In my dreams, and they die.

In my resentments, and they die. In my bitterness, and it dies. In my fears, in my possessions, in my abilities, in my achievements, in my ambition.

Everything about me. I take it out there, fall on my face before the Lord, become a dry bone. When we do this, there is a rattling and a shaking, and the bones come together.

We keep talking about the need for the manifest unity of the body of Christ. The bones can't come together and be one until they die. Now it's easy to see who's been to the valley of the dry bones and who hasn't.

Those who've been to the valley of the dry bones are walking around free of themselves. And those who haven't are walking around still bound to themselves. If I'm bound to myself, self-conscious, self-seeking, self-pitying, self-centered, I haven't been there yet.

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, what does it mean to take up our cross daily? Take up your cross daily. It means that from here on through, every day of our life begins out there in the valley of the dry bones. Every day of our life begins by offering ourselves up to death for the glory of the Father.

And so, we roll out of bed and drag ourselves or crawl or however we have to do it, out to the valley of the dry bones and begin there again each day. And there, among the bones, we say with Paul from Galatians 2, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I die, He lives. Now, I know we mouth this very often, but as soon as God puts it to the test, somebody hurts my feelings or somebody doesn't give me proper respect, I shoot right up and show who's really alive in here.

So, I have to keep doing this all the time. When we begin the day out there with Galatians 2, in a mystery, there comes a shrill whistling sound from heaven. Wind.

And He raises us up, crucifies us with life, so that this day we now live in this flesh by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us. If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. Follow me.

Follow me through death into life. Follow me through the valley of the dry bones into a life that is absolutely and utterly committed to my lordship. So now, I begin the day committed to obedience to Him.

He's going to guide me. He will guide me. You know, and some people go, but I don't, you know, some of these people seem to get guided.

They say they're guided, another, you know, and I can't even decide. Well, listen, the things that aren't clear, don't worry about. You know, don't worry whether God really wants you to run for president in 1988.

If He wants you to, He'll let you know when the time comes. In the meantime, there's such a matter as getting right with your brother, repenting, giving to someone who's in need, speaking a word of encouragement to someone who needs to hear it. There are specific things in obedience that the Lord will show each one of us if we're willing to go to the valley of the dry bones every day.

He'll show you. And in the process of obedience, awesome and wonderful life begins to benefit Himself. Now, we make that decision to be obedient, to follow in His steps, to do His will day by day, hour by hour.

We make that decision as an individual. But the instant we make it, we are suddenly surrounded with men and women who also have died and been raised. And we are drawn together with them and we become, together with them, the body of Christ.

And now, together, as that mighty army raised out of the valley of the dry bones and filled with the life of God, we go forth to proclaim the kingdom with power, to heal the sick, to raise the dead, to give sight to the blind, to bring good news to the poor, the ones that everybody else forgets about, especially the Christians. Most of us have been trying to take a shortcut to spiritual life, spiritual life, by bypassing the valley of the dry bones. Hey, that's negative! Why don't you tell us something positive? That's the most positive thing there is.

In the kingdom, the only ones who have life are those offering themselves being raised from the dead. The only ones who have life from God are those. And he said to all, to all, to all, if any man, if any woman, would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.

Now, if we're afraid, God will help us with our fears. If we're confused, not sure, he'll clear things up for us. If we're full of doubts, all we have to say is, I believe, help my unbelief, and he'll help us.

But the life we seek begins and continues forever at a cross. Not only his cross, our cross. I know, Jesus finished the work when he died on Good Friday afternoon.

He died, it is finished. But my friend, the effective power of that cross can't get a hold of us until we let that power first take us down with him into a grave. As long as you talk about the atonement as something separate from your own death, nothing happens in your life.

So it begins and continues at a cross, his cross and ours. Don't be afraid to take hold of the cross, pick it up, and carry it. Because when you do, the power of his resurrection will flood you and guide you and anoint you and fill you and satisfy you every day.

How about if we just take some time in silence and let the Spirit get specific with us personally. And if there are those here, if there's anybody here who stands at the door of the kingdom and hasn't come in yet, come on down. Somebody will help you, pray with you, whatever you need.