Discipleship Begins with Baptism
Matthew 11:29-30 Raise my cross-bar upon yourselves, and learn from me, because I am benevolent and humble of heart, and you will find a place of rest for your lives.
Raise a cross-bar, walk a Jesus-Walk of Humility and produce benevolence? Maybe, but doubtful, unless I have received the gift of the spirit-fruit seed through water immersion first (Acts 2:38). Who knew that baptism (water immersion) would launch such a life-changing, heart-circumcising trajectory. Jesus did say, “Go into the world and baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the holy spirit.” Why? The spirit has the seed, Jesus has the blueprints, and God’s Divine nature will disciple anyone who wants in.
Yoking myself to the cross of Christ is not just a recommendation to become a disciple who plans on training to imitate Jesus. The cross-imitating method is essential to producing the spirit-fruit of Jesus, completing the ‘church’ experience.
There is no church without Jesus, and there is no Jesus without the cross, and there is no disciple of Jesus without the companion cross-bar. Matthew 16:24 If you want to come behind me, he renounced himself, his cross is raised and imitate Me,” the hallmark verse for anyone interested in that ‘closer walk with Jesus.’ Just a Closer Walk with Thee is a song full of flower beds and Easter Sunday bonnets. “Who with Thee my burden shares?” Only if that cross-bar is latched on tight.
No disrespect, but I think what the lyricist should or could have said to pack the full punch about sharing in toils and snares, is that the uniform for such a job is Humility. The journey to the center of Christ’s Humility first requires a fitted cross-bar. The cross-bar ensures the full experience of a heart circumcised and fashioned after Jesus by the spirit’s own double-edged sword.
Heart circumcision is only semantics until the cross-bar is raised. Spiritual development is only church-talk until heart circumcision is in operation. The True Carpenter knows how to fashion hearts with a wooden cross. Painful at first, like a new pair of shoes, the cross-bar just needs to be broken in. That closer walk with Thee, not following behind but in sharp-imitation style, the temptation might be to chuck the whole thing, but perseverance through the suffering (Romans 5:3-5) will produce the character of the Jesus-Walk, the remedy for breaking in new yokes.
What do you get when you cross a new walk with a new heart? I think it’s called confidence. Well, at least, that’s what Paul told the Romans.
