David Diga Hernandez - Embracing Your Cross

Jesus himself said that if you want to be his disciple, you must deny yourself and pick up your cross in order to follow him. The cross represents self-denial; the cross represents pain; the cross represents discomfort. Christ has called us to fully embrace the cross. You know, in this age, people are running from sacrifice; they are running toward comfort; they are running toward pleasure; they are running toward whatever elevates self. But Jesus has called us to the opposite. He said that if you want to follow him—I mean truly follow him—then there will be points in your life where you will have to sacrifice things. I use that word sacrifice with reservation because really, when it comes to giving things to God, there is no such thing as sacrifice. For everything that I give to him, he returns to me a hundredfold. There is suffering, though; there is pain. Really, the only one who ever made a sacrifice was Jesus, but he has called us nonetheless to embrace the cross, to embrace self-denial. The comfort Christianity, the prosperity Christianity, that has to be removed from your mind if you ever want the power of the Holy Spirit in your life. Let me tell you something: the reason there is no power in the church today is because the message of the cross has been removed. People seek the elevation of self; people seek the promotion of their dreams; people seek the celebration of ego when they should be seeking the cross, when they should be seeking the death of self. I want to talk to you today about something that is rarely discussed anymore, and that is the cross of Jesus. You know, if you truly want to be his disciple, if you truly want to follow him, if you truly want to be counted as one whom God can use with power—I’m talking with real power—then you have to come to the place where you say, «Lord, whatever the price, whatever the cost, I’m willing to pay it. Crucify my flesh, Lord; remove self from me and let my life be spent for your glory.» I’m talking about the cross. Now, Steven Montazuma is here with me, as usual; he’s going to lead you in worship, and then we’re going to get right back into this message. I want to challenge you today; I want to challenge you where you are in your faith. I want to challenge you to do more for God. Here is Steven’s maaz house: let your praises fill our MTH. Let each vessel offer to you the sacrifice of praise, for you alone are holy; for you alone are worthy, and you deserve the glory, Jesus. You alone—oh, you alone, Lord; for you alone are worthy, Lord; you alone are worthy, Lord. Oh, we seek you, Lord; we glorify you, God. Let your glory fill this house; let your praises fill our mouths. Let each vessel offer to you the sacrifice of praise, for you alone are holy; for you alone are worthy, and you deserve the glory, oh Jesus, you alone. What does it really mean to be a disciple of Jesus? I mean, truly be one who follows Jesus? Well, Jesus made it very clear, and we’re going to read that in a moment, that in order to follow him and to be his disciple, you must embrace the cross. Now, the cross represents a place of pain; the cross represents suffering; the cross represents self-denial. The believer must commit to self-denial if the believer is to experience the fullness of the power of the Holy Spirit upon his life or her life. The truth is that many Christians sit comfortably in churches while the world goes to hell. I don’t know about you, but when I stand before God at the end of my life—because the scripture says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord—when I stand before him and give an account for the life that I have lived, I want to be able to tell him that I did all that I could for the sake of the Gospel. I want to be able to say that I gave all that I was for his name’s sake. I want to say, «Lord, I embrace the cross; I did your will; I did what you called me to do.» But not every believer, unfortunately, will be able to say that. I pray that I am counted among those who are able to say that. The truth is that ministry, being anointed, or living the true Christian life will at some points cost you. I’m not saying that God doesn’t want to prosper you; I’m not saying that you need to live in misery because the scripture tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and peace, and so forth. We are to live with a magnetic Christianity; we are to live with a magnetic spirituality. We must be life-giving; we must be refreshing; we must be filled with joy and filled with peace. We must have a heavenly atmosphere around us that people can sense. So I’m not talking about being miserable. But the truth is that if you are on the path of the call of God, that path has points of pain. If you have never given anything for the sake of the Gospel, if you have never sacrificed a thing, if you have never embraced your cross, then the truth is you are not in the will of God. If you have never faced challenge, if you have never faced trouble, if you have never faced hardship, then you are not in the will of God. If you have never been mocked for your love for Jesus, if you’ve never been persecuted to some degree or another because of your preaching of the Gospel, then you are not in the will of God. Look, I know this is not popular to teach this. I know that what you’re hearing nowadays is mostly about the elevation of self, the pursuit of your dreams, how God wants to fulfill all that you want to do, and you’re going to be this accomplished individual here upon the Earth, and somehow that is going to save the souls of men. No, that is not the truth. The Gospel is not about self-improvement; the Gospel, at the very center of it, is about the abandonment of self. It’s about the giving of self; it is about the cross. The scripture says in 1 Corinthians 1:18, «For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God.» It is called the preaching of the cross, not the preaching of comfort, not the preaching of success, not the preaching of accomplishing your dreams, not the preaching of being successful at ministry. It is the preaching of the cross of Christ; it is the preaching of self-denial; it is the preaching of the death and the crucifixion of the flesh. We have been crucified with Christ. Our old passions, our old desires have been nailed to that cross. We are to be ones who say, «Lord, take all that I am and spend it for your glory.» He has called us to embrace sacrifice; he has called us to embrace, at some point or another, pain. We do all that we can to avoid pain; we do all that we can to avoid challenge and discomfort. But if you are to be on the path of the call of God, if you are to be walking in the center of the will of God, then you will face hardship. Luke 9:18–26 says: «And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him. He asked them saying, ‘Whom say the people that I am? ’ They answering said, ‘John the Baptist; but some say Elias; and others say that one of the old prophets is risen again.’ He said unto them, ‘But whom say ye that I am? ’ Peter answering said, ‘The Christ of God.’ And he straightly charged them and commanded them to tell no man that thing, saying, ‘The Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day.’ And he said to them all, ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world and lose himself or be cast away? For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed when he shall come in his own glory and in his Father’s and of the holy angels.’» Jesus is saying that you must deny yourself daily; you must abandon yourself daily. The passions of the flesh must be crucified daily. Now, everyone that God ever calls, everyone that God will ever use, must learn self-abandonment. There is no more powerful message. If you let me put it this way: if you want to be anointed by God, if you want the power of the Holy Spirit upon your life—I mean in a genuine way—not in an emotional expression, not in hype, I’m talking about the true power of God to where the presence of God rests on your life, to where you can lay hands on the sick and see them recover, to where you can drive out demonic beings—if you want to see the power of God on your life, and you want the manifestation of his glory—because a lot of believers can perform the miracles like in Matthew 7:21, but they don’t have the glory, the manifested glory resting on their lives. We have classes that teach people online, «Here’s how to heal the sick; here’s how to pray in the prophetic; here’s how to give a word of knowledge, a specific word of knowledge.» We have all of these classes on the gifts, but very few people ever step into the glory. The reason for that is because very few people like the idea that we must embrace the cross. And I’m not even saying I necessarily like the idea, but we must embrace the cross if we are to walk in true power. We must embrace the cross if we are to truly be used of God. Anyone that God will ever truly use, anyone that God will ever truly anoint, is one who has lived through the cross; is one who has lived through the season of the cross. We will call it—and when I say the season of the cross, I’m talking about those moments in your life, those times in your life where you feel like quitting, those times in your life where people reject you because of the name of Jesus that you proclaim, where people will hate you because you’re preaching truth when nobody else is; those times where you have to give up maybe a career, a dream, a passion, a hobby, or a relationship because it got in the way of the call of God.