Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.
 
“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church” (Col 1:24).
 
One is immediately struck with the thought, "What could be possibly be lacking in the afflictions and anguish that Christ bore on the cross?"  As a person, he was mocked and humiliated and held in contempt to a degree that would destroy all self-esteem in most.  As a man, he was literally beaten to death with vicious cutting scourges that likely bared the bones of his back.  Then, he was nailed to the cross where he must scrape that abraded back up the rough wood, pushing on the spike through his feet, in order to relieve the strain on his lungs and gasp life-giving breaths.  When the agony in his feet became too great, he would scrape painfully back down to hang on the spikes in his wrists—over and over and over... 
 
As the Son of God, Holy, Blameless, he felt the crushing weight of all the horrifying filth of sin as he was “made to be sin on our behalf” (2Cor 5:21).  A gang-raped virgin was never so defiled as he was by our sins.  Having been in fellowship with the Father from eternity before time was, he was ripped from the presence of the Father by MY sins, by YOUR sins and screamed out, “My God!  My God!  Why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34).
 
What could Paul possibly be referring to that was lacking in such suffering?  We are the answer, in that he rejoiced in his sufferings for the Colossians’ sake.  Jesus was not in the world suffering that they might have the gospel.  Paul was doing that in Christ’s stead.  This was as God intended, that we may have the privilege of sharing in Christ’s sufferings.
 
So, this meal, this bread and juice, are not merely a memorial to his sufferings so long ago, they also are a commitment to fill on our part, that which is lacking in Jesus’ sufferings.
 
It should be obvious that this suffering does not refer to cancers, blindness, disasters, as these also happen to the wicked and are not “for his body’s sake.”  What are we committing to suffer when we take this bread and drink this cup?  Paul was imprisoned for preaching the gospel, suffering much to carry the gospel to the lost and to see that churches grew from infancy to self-sufficiency (2 Cor 11:21-32).
 
Our opportunities to suffer for the sake of the gospel in behalf of Christ are not likely to be so dramatic. It seems trivial to place giving up a favorite television show, my privacy, my precious routine, the big game, and other such things alongside Jesus’ suffering or Paul’s work to fill up the lack in them, until we consider that we seldom manage to accomplish even these small things on behalf of the body.  Just what, if anything, have we managed to give up at all for the sake of his body this past week?
 
Perhaps when we step it up, when giving up even these smallest things becomes second nature to us, God will grant the privilege to genuinely join in with Paul in filling up that which is lacking in the suffering of Christ.
 
"For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.…Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation… All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; …entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. (2Cor 5:17)." (2Cor 5:14-15).
 
Keith Ward

“Just like my tattoo, you’ll always be with me.” 
            Is it just me or do today’s love songs leave you a little cold?  I nearly laughed out loud at the lyric above when I heard it on the radio a few years ago.  Then I realized it was supposed to be a serious sentiment and I wanted to cry.  What has become of romance?
           
            She walks in beauty like the night
                        Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
            And all that’s best of dark and bright
                        Meet in her aspect and her eyes.
 
            Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
            Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
 
            How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.
 
And now we have the tattoo song?  Surely Lord Byron, William Shakespeare and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are doing the proverbial grave roll as today’s “love songs” waft down through the loam.
            Did it ever occur to you that we are to be singing love songs to God?  For some reason we focus on the father-child relationship when the scripture also emphasizes the husband-wife bond. 
             You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you, Isa 62:3-5.
            Maybe we feel a little uncomfortable talking to God as if he were our “beloved,” especially the gentlemen among us.  Yet David several times uses that term in his psalms.  Certainly romantic love isn’t the only metaphor used of the relationship between God and his people, but each one has a particular emphasis, and perhaps by avoiding this one, we miss an important point.
            What kinds of things do we say to our spouses?  Just think of the love songs from your own decade.  I would climb the highest mountain, swim the deepest sea; Until the twelfth of never I’ll still be loving you; I can’t help falling in love with you; You mean the world to me, I know I’ve found in you my endless love; All I ask for is one love, one lifetime, say the word and I will follow you.  All of these emphasize the point of marriage—a love for someone that causes you to change yourself, to give up anything and anyone, and be willing to bear the tribulations of life together, “ for better or for worse, until death do us part.”  Isn’t that a good description of the commitment you once made to the Lord?
            And what is it Jesus says is the greatest commandment?  Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind, Luke 10:27 (Deut 6:5).  I hope at least once in your life you have said to your spouse, “I love you with all my heart.”  If you haven’t, you had better make tracks and do so right now!
            Then there is the matter of fidelity in marriage.  Just as one today might put away an unfaithful spouse, God in righteous indignation will put away a people who make commitments to anything or anyone besides him—Isa 50, Jer 3,11,12, Ezek 16 and 23, and Hosea 1-3 to name just a few passages where the figure is used.  Any who have had to deal with it firsthand know that divorce is a painful experience; that one grieves after it just as if they lost a spouse by death.  Certainly we do not want God to put us away in a similar way—yet he most certainly will.
            So today, think about God as your beloved, the one you love most in the world, the one you have changed your life for and plan to live with forever.  Don’t take that relationship for granted, as you sometimes do your earthly marriage.  Sing a love song to God.
 
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.
My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
When I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
For you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. Psalm 63:1-7.
 
Dene Ward

Now that I have tried to encourage the late beginners, it’s time to work on the rest of us—the ones who have been there, claiming to lay hold on the hope of life eternal from childhood.
            I once had a 6 year old piano student who progressed faster than any other that age.  Her mother had limited her children to one extracurricular activity and this one chose piano.  Because she was limited in how thinly she spread herself by a wise parent who knew that even children can suffer from stress, she regularly practiced more than I asked of her and could pick up on concepts that often had older students completely stumped.  She had “trained her powers of discernment by constant practice.”  Is it any wonder that I was ready to put her in a competition her first year, instead of waiting a year as I usually did?  Is it any wonder that she won first place at her level at a state competition the first time she went?
            When I was a child, people in the church were known for their Bible knowledge.  What has happened to us?  People who have been Christians for thirty or forty years cannot find their way through the Old Testament.  They cannot quote standard proof-texts.  When they try to recall those basic old stories, Jacob winds up married to Rebekah and Isaac to Rachel; Moses builds the ark and Daniel gets tossed into the fiery furnace.  You hear them introducing the preacher as either the Pastor or THE Minister of the church, as if there were only supposed to be one person serving in God’s family.  Hosea’s warning rings frighteningly in my ears--My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, 4:6.
            When I was young, children actually came home from school every afternoon.  Families actually ate their evening meals together.  Television time and content was limited by parents who were home to supervise their children. 
            As we said last time, we apply the passage in Heb 5, what it takes to learn and grow, in every aspect of life BUT the one it was meant for.  We know what it takes to get a promotion at work, or to keep a job.  We know what it takes to pass a written driving test.  We know what we must do if we hope to learn anything new, whether a sport or art or subject we are interested in.  There is no excuse for not doing this with the subject we claim to be more important than any other in our lives.
            I find myself wondering what would happen if we made it a point to limit our children’s activities like the mother of my young student, so that there would be time for family Bible studies every night.  What if we turned that television off just one night a week, or turned it off one hour earlier every night so that we could study?  As a teacher, I can tell you what would happen.  We would KNOW God’s word, and with it in our hearts we could not help but BE better people.
           
With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments!
I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes!
With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth.
In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.
I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.
I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.  Psalm 119:10-16
 
Dene Ward

I taught piano from the time I was 16 years old, and earned a degree in music education (piano and vocal) with a stress on piano pedagogy.  It seemed the ideal way to help with our family income without leaving my children.  Indeed, my children were also my students, and any time I had to go out of town for a competition they went too.
            I had students ranging in ages from 4 to 80, and I usually found that the students on the extreme ends of that range were the ones who took most of my energy.  I once had a 70 year old from a town 30 miles distant.  He was a real joy because of his intense interest and zealous practice.  He studied his theory lessons so hard that he regularly came to his lesson with a list of questions that took nearly half his allotted time to answer. 
            Once, when we were studying chords, he despaired at ever being able to instantly play one from its symbol alone.  Memorizing the difference between an A7, Am7, Adim7, AMaj7, as well as the standard A, Am, A+, and Adim took him several minutes and a lot of concentration. 
            “You do it!” he once said in exasperation, pushing the theory book my way on the rack, and I calmly played them one after the other simply by reading the symbols.
            “How long till I can do that?” he grumbled.
            I reminded him that I have been at this since I was 7, and had four years of college theory under my belt, too.  It would be a shame if I couldn’t do it.
            That reminded me of Heb 5:12-14:   For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
            We apply that principle to life without thinking, as he did to his music lessons, but we want to make excuses when it comes to spiritual matters.  My student, because of his diligent practice and meditation on the theoretical aspects of music and harmony, had come a long way in a short time.  Though he might have been impatient with himself, when I asked him to go back to a piece he had struggled with the year before and he found it simple to play, he could recognize his growth and improvement.  He “trained himself with constant practice” and was ready for some pretty solid food in the way of piano compositions and music theory.
            It is easy to look down on yourself when all you see is your failings and others’ abilities.  If you became a Christian later in life, not having grown up with the Bible narratives taught in every children’s Bible class, not having heard sermon after sermon for years, it will be a struggle for you to catch up.  If you have simply sat on a pew handed down as if it were an inheritance, and only wakened to your commitment to the Lord as an adult, you might be behind, too. 
            There is a wealth of information in the scriptures, and as you get older, learning seems to take far more effort.  For me numbers especially become more and more confusing.  I remember passages because I memorized them as a child.  Start calling out numbers to me now and they will leave my mind immediately, or, if somehow remembered, will come out transposed. 
            Don’t give up—just practice more.  If a 70 year old man can learn chord symbols, if he can play thirteen major scales, and thirteen minors in all three variations, if he can become one of the best music students I ever had, you can certainly do the same for God.  And if you ever despair, take a look back a year or so ago.  Don’t you see the improvement?  Don’t you see the fruit of your effort?  You know more, you understand more, you can even answer questions you could not have comprehended when you first started.
            That is, you can, if you have been working at it.
 
Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress, 1 Tim 4:15.
 
Dene Ward

(This one might actually be more like a five second devo!  Short but true.)

When writing on the duty to love one another, it might help wonderfully to make ourselves more lovable. 

Robertson Whiteside, Doctrinal Discourses

I started thinking about it when the man from the phone company called, trying to get us to add to our basic service.  “We have a package for ___ dollars that will give you everything you want,” he said. 
            “But I don’t want those things,” I told him.  “I’m perfectly happy with the basic package,” which is nothing actually, but a phone on the wall that works.
            “But you can talk long distance as long as you want.”
            “I don’t make that many long distance phone calls.”
            “But you can have call waiting and never miss a call.”
            “I don’t receive many calls.”
            “But you can have digital internet service and not tie up your phone with dial-up.”
            “I’m never on the computer longer than ten minutes and if it’s important, they’ll call back.”
            He was stumped.  He had never run into someone who was not held captive by their telephone.
            We do it all the time about everything.
            “Lather, rinse, repeat,” the bottle says.  Do you realize you don’t have to repeat?  If you wash your hair regularly, once is all you need.  Can’t get enough lather, you say?  Add a handful of water to the lather you already have and that usually does the trick.  Saves you money, too, because your bottle goes twice as far.  Yet most follow those directions without even thinking about it—held prisoner by a bottle of shampoo.
            How about the calendar?  I learned this lesson long ago from my mother.  We lived a thousand miles away and couldn’t get down for the holidays.  She left her decorations up until we got there the end of January, not worrying about the strange looks she got from the neighbors.  I have done the same with my children.  A holiday or birthday is when you can be together, not when the calendar says it is.
            Twice I have had eye surgery on our anniversary.  We celebrated several weeks later.  It isn’t about the date as much as it is about the sentiment.  If it isn’t about the sentiment, you are simply a slave of your calendar.
            Women are held captive by fashion.  I went to the mall—another place that holds us prisoner with the obsession to shop, shop, shop—and came away with nothing.  Everything I saw was just plain ugly.  Most of the clothes in my closet are well over ten years old.  Why buy a new dress when the old one still fits, is in good condition, and especially if you don’t like the new style?
            It’s amazing to me that we Americans, a people who pride ourselves on our independence, can let things take us prisoner so easily.  It’s horrifying to me when the same feeling makes us prisoners of sin. 
            I read an article several years ago in which European women were asked what they thought of American women’s clothes.  “Americans dress like prostitutes,” was a common opinion.  (Check out Prov 7:6-12!)  In fact, considering my last visit to that mall, I would have to agree.  It looked like I had been dropped into the middle of a streetwalkers’ convention.  I remember the first time the miniskirt came into fashion.  A few years later the hemlines dropped again.  It’s a shame that some Christian women only dropped theirs because their masters, the fashion designers, said to.  Dressing like a pure and godly woman had nothing to do with it.
            But that is not the only way sin can take us captive.  Do you want to be liked?  Do you want to be accepted by your peers?  Do you want to be popular or cool?  Guess how that affects your behavior given the general sinfulness of society, which you are making your lord and master with those motivations?
            God has set us free from sin and expects us to act like it, completely independent of the culture we find ourselves in.  Think today about the things you let take you captive.  Maybe it’s time you broke out of prison.
 
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." They answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham [We are Americans!] and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will become free'?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:31-36
 
Dene Ward

A prevalent religious tenet says that we can do nothing to earn our salvation.  Now as far as that goes, it is correct.  The scriptures teach us that nothing we can possibly do will ever merit the salvation of our souls.  That is how bad sin is to the Divine Nature of God.  But that doctrine we were discussing goes on to say that obedience plays no part in our salvation at all, that to obey any command is to try to earn salvation, almost as if obedience were a bad thing.
            Common sense comes to the rescue.  How in the world can anyone possibly think that God will accept a disobedient child, especially a deliberately disobedient child?  My women’s class found at least two dozen passages in the Bible to back up this little bit of wisdom.  It took far longer to read them all than to find them, and concordances and topical Bibles put together by men who actually believe that nonsensical doctrine were a big help in finding those opposing passages.  Do you see a problem with this picture?  It takes distortion of epic proportions to put this doctrine together.
            That is not the biggest fallacy though, to my mind.  If I somehow had a hundred thousand dollar automobile and told you that you could have it if you would only drive me home first, would you for a minute think you had earned that car by doing so?  Of course not, unless you think that your time is worth a whole lot more than I do—almost $100,000 an hour in fact.  But I bet every time I needed a ride to the doctor, you would be more than happy to offer it.
            To ever equate baptism and good deeds with earning salvation is to completely misunderstand the seriousness of sin, to demean the sacrifice of Christ, and devalue salvation.  Obedience can never earn the sacrifice of Deity becoming flesh, living in a world of indignities, becoming subject to sin, temptation, and death, and finally being tortured and killed by the very beings He created.  Nothing is equal to that sacrifice, or to Eternity in Heaven with God.  Yet that very fact ought to make us even more diligent in our obedience, not less.
            No, living a faithful life, overcoming temptation, putting up with persecution on its various levels, or even dying for our Lord will never earn us a spot in Heaven, nor will menial tasks like baptism either.  What we do for God is out of gratitude for a salvation we could never have managed on our own and will never be worthy of, except as He has made us worthy with a forgiveness we do not deserve.  But if we think the ingratitude of disobedience makes us worthy, we’ve simply lost our minds.
           
Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, Come at once and recline at table? Will he not rather say to him, Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty. Luke 17:7-10.
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

            Joshua's introduction in the book bearing his name is somewhat odd:  "After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' assistant" (1:1).  While Moses is referred to as the servant (slave) of Jehovah, Joshua is merely the assistant of Moses.  While Joshua has been a faithful helper to Moses, clearly his status before God is still to be determined.  It is pretty clear how this winds up as, at his death, Joshua holds the same title as Moses.  "After these things Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being 110 years old"  (24:29).  What happened in between?  God made it clear in chapter 1 what He expected of Joshua.
Josh. 1:7-9  "Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.  This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.  Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”  
           Last time we discussed the care Joshua took to keep the law, down to the smallest detail.  What is of interest here is God saying Joshua needs courage and strength to follow His law.
            For God to exhort Joshua to have courage and strength as he led the people in battle would not be surprising, but God says that courage and strength were needed "to do according  to all the law."  Why was this the needed?  I can think of several possibilities.

1)  From experience, I can say that the step from top assistant to boss is a large one.  Joshua could have succumbed to timidity thinking that the people would say, "Why should we listen to you?"
2)  These were a notoriously hard-headed group of people.  Their fathers had repeatedly rebelled and murmured against God.  They, themselves, had only recently sinned at Baal-Peor.  While the people seemed to have learned their lesson from that, it was a good bet that leading them in following the law would be an arduous task. 
3)  Insisting on following the Law could easily lead to others mocking/complaining that Joshua was an old stick-in-the-mud.  "He never lets us have fun," and the pressure builds.

            Joshua was strong and courageous and overcame these and any other temptations to stray from doing all that God commanded him, even the difficult task of punishing Achan for taking from the devoted things in Jericho.  In the end, Joshua was called the servant of God.
            For me, I need to acknowledge that sometimes it can be a bit scary to follow after God.  Speaking of religion might be forbidden at work and my boss could deny my promotion.  My friends may make it clear that they don't want to hang out with me anymore.  People on social media could blast me for speaking truth, to the point that I am banned from certain sites and it might even affect job possibilities.  My business, which has been my life dream and which has absorbed my life savings, may be forced to close or be ruined.  I may wind up in jail (yes, this has happened in America).
            All of these things could happen if I am "careful to do according to all" that God commands.  Like Joshua, I need to be strong and courageous.  Like Joshua, I need to remember that God is with me wherever I go.  Then, like Joshua, I will be remembered as the servant of the LORD.
 
Acts 18:9-10  "And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, 'Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you'"
 
Lucas Ward

I recently taught a class in which the various tenets of a major religious philosophy came up for discussion.  After a lengthy explanation of only one of those items, one of the class members said to me, “It must take a theologian to make something that is so simple so complicated.”  The more I thought about it, the more I agreed with her.  Just a little common sense makes them all sound ridiculous.
            Have you heard that we are all born in sin, totally depraved and unable to do anything good?  Yes, I can take some passages out of context and completely apart from the rest of the teaching of scriptures and make them say anything I want them to say too.  So?  Common sense makes it plain that this is a ploy to blame our sins on God.  After all, He is the one who made us, who created us the way He did.
            Now just exactly how did God create man?  He made us in his own image!  Now tell me I am completely and totally depraved and unable to do anything good.  That is not only ridiculous, but patently irreverent and probably sacrilegious as well, if I am indeed made in the image of God.
            But that doctrine does do this for me:  it takes the blame off of me when I sin.  It makes my sins completely and utterly God’s fault for making me that way.  Let me know if you are willing to be the one who stands before Him and tries out that excuse.
            The Bible teaches that there was a time when I was without sin, Rom 7:9.  What could that possibly be but childhood, before I was unable to recognize a consciousness of sin?  At that point, “Sin revived and I died [spiritually].”  So much for “born in sin.”
            Then there are passages galore that tell us that sinning is our choice.  “Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies,” Rom 6:12.  “God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted beyond your ability but will with the temptation provide the way of escape,” 1 Cor 10:13.  “Resist the devil and he will flee from you,” James 4:7.  My class easily came up with a dozen more telling us that sin is not inevitable for the Christian, the one who now has the help of Christ, that he now has a choice.  That means we do not have to sin--the blame is ours, not God’s, not the church’s, not our parents’, not society’s—not even Adam’s.
            And it certainly makes wonderful and obvious sense that someone created in the image of God was not only created “very good,” Gen 1:31, but also has the power to choose between right and wrong.  The problem comes not because we have no choice, but when we make the wrong choice.  You have to work pretty hard to complicate that.
 
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, Gen 1:26.
Behold, this only have I found: that God made man upright, Eccl 7:29.
"'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.'” Acts 17:28.
Put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness, Eph 4:24.
 
Dene Ward
 

Finally, after two plus excruciating months of waiting for the permit process to work, the contractor's crew is working to turn this house into the home we want.  It's not that we are hard to please, but cabinets that I cannot even put a plate into without wiggling it this way and that and that leave two thirds of my kitchen equipment still in boxes and my silverware tray sitting on the counter because none of the three drawers is wide enough for it, and a shower that will not turn off once you manage to pry it on and a toilet tank that takes ten minutes to refill after you flush it do not make for an easy life.
            So the first day of work was, in HGTV parlance, "demo day."  It is hard to believe that it only took one day to tear down a bathroom and a kitchen to bare walls.  That was yesterday, and today they are scraping "popcorn."  In another couple of days, they might actually be able to begin rebuilding.
            That is what we are all supposed to go through when we commit our lives to the Lord.  Too many of us just paint over a bad spot and think that will take care of it.  Jesus said from the beginning of his ministry that he expected a whole do-over.
            And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me (Matt 10:38).  We see that passage and completely miss the point.  We view taking up our cross as some sort of trial we undergo, like an illness or a disability, or maybe an actual person who actively works against us.  But wait!  In that culture, if you saw a person carrying a cross, what did you instantly know?  That he was going to his death, that's what.  Jesus was not telling them to die for him physically, though that might indeed be required down the road, but they must die spiritually in order to be truly converted.  Isn't that what Paul said?  I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Gal 2:20).
            And if you still don't get the point, he tells us when we are supposed to die that death.  Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin (Rom 6:3-7).  When we were baptized, we were supposed to have crucified the old person we used to be and begun living a brand new life. 
            You can only completely renovate yourself when you have done a demo down to the bare bones.  Only the one "who has died" in baptism "has been set free from sin."  If you left anything hanging around, if you decided you could be a disciple of Christ and still act the way you used to, talk the way you used to, think the way you used to, live the way you used to, your demo day was incomplete and thus, your conversion as well.
            Demo day in this house was uncomfortable.  It was noisy, dirty, dusty, and the utilities were on and off.  We had to empty every single cabinet, drawer, and closet in those two rooms.  Sweeping at the end of the day didn't even clean the floors.  But now the rebuilding begins, as it should have begun for us after our "crucifixion."  It will probably take longer than the demolition, just as it will in my home.  But just like my kitchen and bathroom will be so much better than it was, so will we, if we do the work the right way.
 
Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new (2Cor 5:17).
 
Dene Ward