Theme: Self-Esteem or Self-Denial?
This week's lessons teach us that Jesus' command for Christians to take up their cross is not something that happens later in the Christian life, but at the very beginning. Indeed it is a critical idea of discipleship itself.
Scripture: Luke 9:23-26
At the beginning of these studies I wrote that there is a fatal flaw in the professing church today, a lack of true discipleship. Discipleship is talked about, of course.
At the beginning of these studies I wrote that there is a fatal flaw in the professing church today, a lack of true discipleship. Discipleship is talked about, of course. There are scores of books about it, particularly about what is called "discipling" other people. Words are not the problem. It is the lack of the thing itself. But what are we to say about this next theme of the need for self-denial, expressed as taking up the cross? In this area it is not only the thing that is lacking; it is an area about which we do not even speak.