A Closer Walk With Thee!

Matthew 16:21"from that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples,how he must go unto Jerusalem,and suffer many things of the elders and chief priest and scribes,and be killed,and be raised again the third day".

A closer walk with thee: How does one walk closely with the Lord? Jesus said ,that we must deny ourself daily and take up our cross, to follow him.What does it really mean to deny self, to take up your cross and follow Jesus?When we make the commitment to become a disciple, we are essentially saying that we are willing to give up,or sacrifice the things we used to enjoy that are not have been pleasing to God.These things that are not pleasing to Him are sins.To deny ourselves means that we are putting our sinful self to death,which is what He wants us to do.Saints if we are not willing to suffer, we won't be able to reign with him(no cross no crown).Ultimately,it is worth the sacrifice because the reward is so great.Saints we will have to suffer along this journey.

To deny yourself does not mean to deny things,it means to give yourself wholly to Christ and share in His shame and death,Too many of us are not willing to suffer shame as a Christian,instead of suffering the shame, we deny Christ with our decisions, lifestyles and our actions.To take up your cross does not mean to carry burdens or have problems,to take up your cross means to identify with Christ in His rejection, shame,suffering and death.Once we have made this commitment, we must not complain when the commitment becomes difficult.After all, is that which we face daily more difficult than the sacrifice Jesus made for us?Now understand ,while on this earth we will have struggles,and yes some of us are dealing with some very hard times right now.However, to allow these challenges to turn us away from following Christ through drug use,crime,adultry,fornication,or other sinful actions are not pleasing to God.The ultimate challenge is simply to learn from our mistakes,become better followers as Christians, and to grow in our personal relationship with God, thus allowing us a closer walk with Him.

We must challenge ourselves to embrace adversity,whether it is depression,death,financial crisis, job loss ,etc. These are just trials that come along in life.We should look at our lives and seek to find what we can change in our behavior, and things we can stop doing, or start doing which will cause us to follow Christ more closely.Then we need to walk in a way as to bring others with us.