How to Carry Your Cross and Lose Your Soul-Life for Christ: Christian Discipleship Series, #15

By Peter M Newman

In the Scriptures, Jesus Christ inseparably linked discipleship with carrying your own cross.  Jesus said, "Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow Me, cannot be My disciple (Luke 14:27)."  Thus Jesus Christ bore our sins on His cross, but He also said we must bear our own cross.  What does this mean?  The Scriptures reveal there are two essential aspects of the cross of Christ: first and foremost, there is Christ's completed work on the cross, and then there is the on-going work of the cross in our lives if we permit it.  It is critical that we understand both of these aspects of the cross if we want to be Christ's disciples.  This eBook explains how we can carry our cross and lose our soul-life, so that we can know Christ and abide in Him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Newman
• Release date: Oct 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386032601

Peter M Newman

Peter M Newman is a Bible teacher and the author of the groundbreaking book, The Meaning of the Cross, and its companion book, Unveiling The Bride - The New Covenant Church.  He has worked with both traditional churches and house churches in pastoring, preaching, teaching, and evangelism and served as editor of a Christian magazine.  He and his wife have been married forty-five years and have two grown children and five grandchildren.  

Book preview

In the Scriptures, Jesus Christ inseparably linked discipleship with carrying your own cross.  Jesus said, Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple (Luke 14:27).  Thus Jesus Christ bore our sins on His cross, but He also said we must bear our own cross.  What does this mean?  The Scriptures reveal there are two aspects of the work of the cross that are essential to accomplishing God’s eternal purpose in His people.  First and foremost, there is Christ’s completed work on the cross, and then there is the on-going work of the cross in our lives, if we permit it.  It is critical that we understand both of these aspects of the cross if we want to be Christ’s disciples.  For if we do not have an accurate knowledge of Christ’s completed work on the cross, we will not know how to carry our own cross.  As God said in Hosea 4:6: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.  And as Paul wrote: They are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge (Romans 10:2).  Christians can be spiritually ignorant about many things, but if they are ignorant about the purpose of Christ’s death on the cross, they are in dire trouble.  If you want to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ, then the meaning of Christ’s death on the cross and what it means for you to carry your own cross is vitally important for you to fully understand.  The full meaning of the cross of Christ and our co-crucifixion with Christ is a central doctrine of Christianity, and understanding its significance is crucial to not only our salvation, but also to our sanctification.  What is sanctification?  Sanctification is the progressive work of God in our lives after we are saved, which enables us to sin less and less, and to think and act like Jesus more and more (1 Thessalonians 5:23).  Knowing the truth of the cross of Christ has eternal consequences for our lives because without this divine knowledge, we will not be able to carry our own cross and walk in sanctification; and without sanctification, we cannot know God, or abide in God and bear His spiritual fruit (Hebrews 12:14; 1 John 3:6).  At the present time, there is much ignorance, misunderstanding and confusion as to what it Biblically means to carry your own cross.  As a result, most professing Christians do not know how to carry their own cross and lose their soul-life for Christ’s sake.  This is why it is essential that every true believer in Christ diligently seeks God for divine revelation on what His Son has fully accomplished for us on the cross and what it really means to carry your own cross and walk in sanctification.  In this eBook, we will closely examine both of the divine aspects of the work of the cross from a Scriptural viewpoint.

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First, let us look at the divine purpose of Christ’s death on the cross.  In the Book of Genesis, we see that God created Adam, the first man, in His image in order to have fellowship with him and with his descendants.  But instead of preserving his friendship with God, Adam sinned and disobeyed God.  Adam’s rebellion against God affected all mankind and, as a consequence, the entire human race inherited his sinful nature (Romans 5:19).  Yet despite Adam’s disobedience and fall into sin, God did not change His divine plan.  At the right time, God sent His Son Jesus, born as a man, to restore mankind to Himself and to His eternal purpose.  Thus Jesus Christ came to earth with one overriding mission - to die on the cross in order to rescue us from sin’s rule and reconcile us to God.  John the Baptist prophesied of Jesus Christ: Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29)  How was this prophecy fulfilled?  How did Jesus take away the terrible curse of sin that separated us from God, and which enslaved us and oppressed us?  The Bible says that Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross as the Lamb of God not only freed us from the penalty of sin, by forgiving our sins (Ephesians 1:7); His death on the cross also freed us from the power of sin, by removing our sinful nature.  The Bible says, "For we know that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin (our sinful nature) might be destroyed (the Greek word is katargeo), so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.  For he who has died has been freed from sin (Romans 6:6-7)."  The King James Version translates the Greek word katargeo in this verse as destroyed, which aptly fits this Scriptural context since our sinful nature (the sin factory within us) was destroyed by Christ’s death on the cross.  The New American Standard Bible translates katargeo in this verse by the phrase, done away with.  This is also an accurate translation since our old sinful nature died and was buried (done away with) by our baptism (immersion) into Christ’s death (Romans 6:3-4).  A review of the other times that katargeo is used in New Testament confirms that destroyed and done away with is the correct translation of katargeo within the context and meaning of Romans 6:6.  For example, Paul