<p>9:23 <i>And he said to all: If anyone would follow me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me</i>- See on Mt. 10:38. In the context of telling His followers to witness to Him, the Lord equates this with taking up their cross daily (Lk. 9:23,26). To not bear that cross is to deny the knowledge of Him before men. To live the crucifixion life is the essential witness. Every act of grace, every evident sign of self-control, every statement of forgiveness towards misunderstanding and unrepentant men... all this is showing something of the cross. And in this, painful and difficult as it is, demanding and driving-to-the-limit as it must be, lies the essence of our being the Lord&rsquo;s witnesses. To witness Christ is not to just painlessly distribute a few tracts. It is to live out the dying of the cross.<br />Take up the cross, and follow me&quot; is inviting us to carry Christ's cross with Him - He speaks of &quot;the cross&quot; rather than 'a cross'. The Greek translated &quot;take up&quot; is that translated 'to take away' in the context of Christ taking away our sins. Strong says that it implies &quot;expiation&quot; (of sins). This connection, between our taking away / up the cross, and Christ's taking away our sins, suggests that the efficacy of His cross for us depends upon our daily 'taking up the cross'. It is vital therefore that we &quot;take up the cross&quot; if our sins are to be taken away by Him. But our taking up of the cross is a response to the taking away / up of our sins.</p><p>We all know from experience that how we start each day is important. Indeed, how we start any enterprise is crucial- hence the need for a sound understanding of the basic Gospel before we're baptized. We so often meet the phrase &quot;rose early in the morning&quot; in the Hebrew Bible. Strong defines the Hebrew <i>shawkam </i>translated &quot;rose early&quot; as essentially meaning &quot;to incline the shoulder to a burden... literally to load up on the back of man&quot;. In this we see an evident connection with the Lord's thought about taking up the cross <i>daily</i>, for that surely implies we are to take it up each morning (Lk. 9:23). Men and women had arisen each morning for 4000 years and inclined their shoulders to the burden of the day, loaded themselves with it onto their back. And the Lord now took humanity further, in redefining that &quot;load&quot;, that burden, as His cross. Practically, does this not mean that we are to reflect as we come to consciousness each morning that we are to load ourselves with His cross? This thought need not necessarily lead to an image of having to burden ourselves with an impossible, awful weight. For again in allusion to this idea of loading oneself up each morning, the Lord spoke of how His burden is <i>light</i> Here perhaps is one of the finest paradoxes of the spiritual life- that His cross, the life of self-sacrifice and self-giving unto the very end, is indeed heavy and demanding... yet in another sense it is &quot;light&quot;, far lighter than the burdens of legalism which Pharisaic religion bound and binds upon people.</p>