Follow

Follow

Five Minute Friday

Five Minute Friday a time to write for five minutes on a word. The word is Follow.

My first thought was follow, follow, follow the yellow brick road from the Wizard of Oz. Then I thought of the verse where Jesus is speaking to his disciples recorded in Matthew 16:24.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Beloved, what does it mean to deny one’s self? What does it look like to take up a cross? What does it mean to follow after Jesus?

One of the cross references in Matthew 10:38

Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:17

To deny yourself is to put Jesus first in your life. Jesus put us first when he carried His cross. All of our sins past, present, and future. Sometimes we have things in our lives that need to be nailed to a cross. In Tracie Miles book, Your Life Still Counts, at a seminar the speaker asked the audience to nail on the cross, the things that was causing shame. Tracie shares how she nailed her sin on the cross that day and she accepted forgiveness for a choice she made as a teenager. Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me.” What is God asking you to let go of so you can follow Him?