Taking up our cross daily, which is in fact following Him and being made conformed to His death, is the voluntary act of embracing the negative, often painful, consequences of walking in the obedience of faith in His command to love. Taking up your cross is not a random experience of suffering, but rather it is an intentional, strategic embrace of Christ’s one commandment, which is now the single law of Christ and the only law within the kingdom of God.
That commandment is simply to love your neighbor as yourself. It is more specifically to show your love for God by the way you love and care for your neighbor, including one another within one’s family, within Christ’s church, and unbelieving neighbors outside His church. It is this faith-based willingness to bear the hard consequences of doing what is right that is ultimately pleasing to God, because that is truly Christ-like and it is so useful to God in awakening biblical faith among church members and beyond among His elect in this lost world.
Paul writes that “all things are lawful” for the Christian, but “not all things are expedient.” “All things are lawful, but not all things edify.” Expediency is always in reference to some objective. It expedites. In this case, the objective that expedited is to love one another with a pure heart fervently in obedience to Christ Himself. Edification is always with reference to some building plans. In this case, the edification is the building up of the body of Christ in love. Therefore, under the Lordship of Christ, we are completely free within His kingdom to do whatever we honestly believe is most in keeping with Christ’s command to love. But every authentic expression of love requires one to take up his cross by bearing the cost of sacrifice, suffering the pain and loss. Though it is better to give than to receive, all giving involves loss. That sacrifice is our cross to bear. It is the cross of Christ in our daily lives.
Those who are seeking to offer some other version of obedience— one that costs them nothing— are in fact “enemies of the cross of Christ.” Their theology is deeply flawed. Their seemingly spiritual life and their “appearance of godliness,” is actually nothing more than spiritual death in dressed up in religious garb. Their minds are focused only on temporal, earthly things, rather than on eternal, heavenly things. Therefore, their end is destruction, unless they repent. Taking up the cross of Christ in this way, embracing the painful consequences that come with obeying his command to love one another is an act of faith. It is not a religious work. It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the primary work of faith that has been prepared by God beforehand for us to do, in Christ for God’s glory. It is not optional. It is the very essence of true Christianity.