Living The Cross Life (Daily Devotional)

Greetings and welcome to Living Supernaturally. Thank you so much for this opportunity to come together, spend time in God’s word and a few moments in prayer as well. Today, we want to talk about living the cross life. Mark chapter 8, verses 34 and 35, ‘Then He called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.’ Jesus’ call is not what many think. People sometimes say we all have our crosses to bear, everyone of us have challenges, everyone of us have difficulties and seasons that we go through but cross bearing has to do with submission to Christ. Bearing a cross for Jesus’ sake doesn’t seem attractive. Jesus however challenged us and His disciples, His followers to bear their own crosses on a daily life. To bear our cross means to live sacrificially for God’s kingdom. Jesus asked His disciples to go where they rather not go, beyond their personal comfort zones. For example, He had His fishermen disciples take Him in their boats across the sea of Galilee; those storms could be expected, they submitted and they paid the price but, in the end, they gained a much greater faith. He calls us to spiritual discipline of submission. Paul says, we must have the same mindset as Christ Jesus who submitted to God the Father, all the way to death on a cross. As disciples, we must be willing to sacrifice our self-interests for the good of others. So, we look to Christ, the epitome of submission. Living the cross life is challenging but not complicated. Jesus submitted to the Father and we are to do the same. He never gave up when the going gets tough. The ultimate reward for humble, obedient submission to God is that He imparts His great forgiveness, mercy, and love upon us. This is not easy and it is for life, but it is well worth the price. Have you answered the call of the cross life? Let’s pray, Father, we thank you, we pray that you will teach us to carry our cross, to be obedient to the call of God upon our lives, that wherever you lead us, we will be obedient to follow you. We may have to sacrifice, we may have to go through difficult seasons, but we pray that you will teach us to trust in you. We thank you that we can trust in you, we pray that you will continue to use for your kingdom to glorify your name, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

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Daily devotions to strengthen your faith each day. Daily Devotional for Spirit filled living. Each daily devotion is about five minutes in duration. These daily devotionals are centered around a weekly theme. So there are seven daily devotions that focus on the theme and bring you insight, understanding and revelation from the Bible. Each week’s theme is listed as a series. So you can listen to the current week’s devotions or go to any previous theme/series that speaks to your present need (https://apcwo.org/resources/daily-devotions ). Also available free sermons (https://apcwo.org/sermons), and free Christian books (https://apcwo.org/books) to nourish and strengthen your faith.