“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” — Luke 9:23
The Christian life is not a safe or partial path, but a total surrender. It is an unraveling of the self through the cross, where death makes way for true life. —D.
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It is not hard to be Christian. It is impossible. No one in their right mind willingly steps onto a path that, when followed honestly, leads straight to their own undoing. And yet, this is exactly what Christ calls us to: the surrender of all we thought was firm beneath us, all we claimed as our own. The Christian life is not built on comfort or control. It is a way of ruin, a slow unraveling. We fight it. We look for loopholes, try to make it less costly, try to live half-Christian lives, striking some fragile deal with the world. But the bargain is a lie. The cross either falls on us or the world devours us whole. One must die. The only question is which.
We resist the crucifixion not because we misunderstand it, but because we understand all too well. It demands everything. Not just belief, but the total surrender of all our self-saving schemes. We try to soften it. We imagine we can keep one foot in Christ and the other planted in the world’s safety. But Christ does not allow half-measures. He wants all or nothing. And so we cry out, as those who have reached the end of themselves, “God, give us strength to walk the path of crucifixion.” Not because we are brave. Not because we desire pain. But because this is the only road that leads to the life we were made for.
The way of Christ is not safe. It is not successful. It is not admired. It is the way of death, and through that death, life. We want the resurrection without the grave, the crown without the thorns, the light without the night. But the cross is not an obstacle in the path. It is the path. And on it we die, not to be erased, but to be made new. What we lose is not wasted. It becomes the seedbed of grace. This is the fierce mercy of Christ. That through the death of the self, we are raised, not as better versions of what we were, but as something entirely new. This is the truth we run from, and the truth that sets us free.