Taking up the Cross - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2025

If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
Luke 9:23

Taking up the Cross
How little some of us know of this, and yet if our hearts are truly attached to Christ, surely, we should not draw back or shrink from the path He sets before us. It means gain, undoubtedly, in that which is abiding and eternal, even if it means loss here. It means nearness to Him who has led the way, the conscious support of His hand in the difficulties that we are sure to meet; and though we naturally shrink from trouble and fear the future, yet if we have proved in any measure what it is to have His company in the trial, we would not have been without it.

To him who realizes what the death of the Lord Jesus Christ means, not only for his sins, but to deliver from this present evil world, this world becomes the “valley of the shadow of death”: the deep, dark shadow of His death lying upon all that the world is and can offer to attract our hearts. Yet he can joyfully exclaim, “I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” The cross means death—I do not mean the death of the body but to the deeds of the body. All we can do is to put our hand in His in simple childlike trust, looking to Him where He is in resurrection glory. We sometimes fear the consequences of following Him wholly, but we should trust His loving heart to do the very best for us.

Oh, let us not give Him a second place; let Him be first and all. We are His, left here to be for Him. May we not dishonor Him and grieve His heart by our coldness and halfheartedness and worldliness, but may we seek to walk worthy of Him to whom we belong, who loves us so perfectly and would draw us with those bands of love.

Emil S. Nashed