Did you know that the Early followers of Christ were called followers of "the way"? The term "Christianity" came much later.
Let us pause and think why were they called that? What was "the way"? The answer will open the door to another basic question: why should anyone follow Christ?
Because Christ offered true followers a pathway to salvation. Jesus was and is the way to our salvation.
Thus, our ultimate goal to follow a resurrected Jesus is because He is the way to salvation.
How may you ask? Jesus said to take up our cross and follow Him - essentially symbolizing the end of our earthly self and a new beginning. When a person carried a cross in Jesus’ day, no one thought of it as a persistent annoyance or symbolic burden. It was literal! "To a person in the first century, the cross meant one thing and one thing only: death by crucifixion. To carry a cross was to face the most painful and humiliating means of death human beings could develop. Two thousand years later, Christians view the cross as a cherished symbol of atonement, forgiveness, grace, and love. But in Jesus’ day the cross represented a torturous death. The Romans forced convicted criminals to carry their own crosses to the place of crucifixion (see John 19:17). Bearing a cross meant one was about to die, and that one would face ridicule and disgrace along the way".
Therefore, Jesus’ command to “take up your cross and follow Me” is a call to self-abasement and self-sacrifice, no matter how hard or painful it may be. One must be willing to die to self in an absolute surrender to God, crucify our "self" and resurrect finding hope, strength, and transformation through our challenges.
This Lenten season, can we reflect on what we need to do to follow His way, or "the Way"?
One suggestion is to adopt the principle of "what would Jesus do" or WWJD. In our next post we will cover that principle.
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