Your cross

“Confessing Christ and preaching the gospel are two ways of expressing the same action; either way one says it, it will be a dangerous activity, because it will bring hate, persecution, and even death to the confessor. This is the cause for which Jesus called His disciples to suffer and to sacrifice themselves.

To take up your cross and bear it means to voluntarily and sacrificially involve yourself in the job of building the church of Christ. It means that the main occupation of your life will now be witnessing Christ to others, making disciples, and teaching them to do all that Christ has taught you to do. This will of course consume your time and your material sources. It will most likely provoke ridicule and derision from others. It might demand that you leave your own country for the mission field, and it might even cost you your own life. This is your cross, and this is how you become a partner with Christ in fulfilling His purposes for mankind.”

Josef Ton

"And Jesus said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life." Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels."　Luke 9:22-26