Blessings to the Family of the SteemChurch!
The "cross" are all our obligations and responsibilities, which often cause even pains in our soul
"Then he called the crowd with his disciples and said to them," If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me "(Mark 8:34).
What the Master Jesus is saying, after recognizing the meaning of his being Messiah, is not a triumphant or glorious being, but the Messiah is the suffering servant, he is the one who carries humanity on his back. Jesus does not do magic to save humanity, but he embraces his humanity with all the consequences of human life.
To follow Jesus, we need to first embrace our humanity, because many times we want to be angels, we believe that we are purely spiritual beings and that we have to live our spirituality talking with the angels all the time.
Our humanity needs to be divinized, it needs communion with the spiritual life that He has brought us, but our humanity needs to be assumed in its fullness as Christ assumed it. Therefore, He is saying that whoever wants to follow him can not want to become an angel. Whoever wants to follow him needs to renounce himself, because renouncing himself is the most difficult requirement, because we are very attached to us, we are attached to our things, we are full of our own wills and moved by our selfishness, by our individualism. It is very difficult to let go of our things, our world to penetrate the world of God.
The weight of discipleship does not mean that following Jesus is heavy. What is heavy is what we carry and we do not want to give up, we want to live with our back full of things, we want to live full of things, that is why everyone is claiming: "I have too many things to do!". We can not give up or the things we have in our closet, because we are attached to the clothes we have, to the things we do; and we do not find time to be with the Master or to pray, because we are filled with too many obligations.
We renounce things that are even important to embrace what is essential, and what essential the Master Jesus directs towards our life. He can only follow Jesus who has the capacity to make renouncements. Life is demanding, and to embrace the essentials of life we must renounce the superficial.
Embrace your cross. The "cross" are all our obligations and responsibilities, which often cause even pains in our soul. If we have an illness, we need to "hug" it. If we have difficulty coexisting, it is useless to solve. If we have children that present that or that difficulty, this or that challenge; If the marriage becomes something painful, it is not the escape that resolves, but the embrace to the cross, because it saves us and from it we will have light for the situations of our life.