I’m sure you’re familiar with the cross—every Christian knows the true story of Christ’s death and resurrection, and every Christian has seen the cross.

However, with crosses everywhere and the story so familiar in your ears and to your eyes, it can be easy to forget. To glance over it without a thought.

And maybe you make yourself pause for a moment because you think that you ought to feel the story deeply. But each time, it’s the same words.

So what happened? You’ve probably seen people come to the faith and seen the wonder in their eyes as they learn. Maybe you know people who have cried reading this story, and you wonder where your wonder went. Maybe you were once that person, unable to express the amazement and the joy, the guilt forgiven, the weight gone.

Or maybe you haven’t seen it yourself, but you long for it. Maybe, like me, you’ve read the story over and over and heard people talking about it with such amazement, and you’ve thought “why can’t I see it the way they see it?”

So where has the meaning gone? How have we lost something so precious?

I remember going to a Good Friday service a few years back that really got me thinking about this. I knew we would be reading the story, but the way we did it surprised me—and moved me for the first time in years.

The pastor went up to the front and began reading, but he didn’t read it all himself. Instead, when we got to the scene where the Jews are demanding Christ’s death, he read Pilate’s lines, and we, the congregation, read the Jews’ lines.

So that every time the Jews cried out “Crucify Him!”, it was my voice in their place.

That was perhaps the first time I really felt the weight and realized that I was one of them. That my sin was what nailed Jesus Christ, the Holy Son of God, onto a wooden cross. Before that point, I had shied away from the image, some ridiculous sense of self-righteousness clouding my sight.

Since then, I’ve had a couple similar experiences that reminded me of my part in His death, or that simply reminded me of the pain He endured for me.

One such experience was this past year when the pastor of our little church had us pick up our little cups of, in this case, grape juice during communion and place them on our open palms where the nails would have been driven into Christ’s hands.

But those fleeting moments weren’t the end.

They opened my eyes to a bit of the depth I had been missing, but I knew they could only scratch the surface.

Looking around, I heard a lot about God’s free gift of salvation and His wondrous love.

But for some reason, the words always sounded just a little hollow.

And maybe that’s because amid all the pleasant words, there’s very little said about why God’s love is so wondrous and what we are to do with the knowledge. There’s nothing about our part in the matter.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we’re the most important thing here—we aren’t. But viewing ourselves in an objective light—seeing our own wrongs and our own shortcomings beside God’s perfection and love—really highlights Him.

So, let’s look at the salvation God offered us on the cross and His love in doing so, alongside our response and our depravity.

Each and every one of us has sinned. And each and every one of our sins is deserving of death.

We know that. We’ve heard it many times before. But have we thought about it?

Most of us have a tendency to look around at others and think, maybe even subconsciously, something along the lines of “well, at least I don’t do that” or “at least my sin doesn’t really affect anyone but me—I’m all kind and helpful on the outside” or “well, I only sin every once in a while, unlike that person”.

So you don’t murder people, or steal candy, or cheat on tests. Are those accomplishments? They shouldn’t have to be.

And maybe you don’t blow up at your siblings when they insult you, unlike that friend of yours. Maybe you hold it in and really turn the other cheek.

So what?

Are these things to be proud of? Maybe, if you’re simply marking your own progress in these areas. But do these things make you any better than anyone else?

The wages of sin is death. The wages of any sin is death. And you know what that little voice is that compares you to others to prop you up? Self-righteousness. Pride. Meaning, it’s deserving of death.

That little voice might still be insisting that you’re better than, say, Hitler, but what kind of an accomplishment is that? We both deserve the same sentence as he got.

Each of us is the reason Christ died. He died because of your sins just as much as anyone else’s. No matter what reasons your head and heart might tell you to try to convince you that you aren’t just as bad as the next person, Christ had to endure the pain of the cross, the pain of death, to save you.

And don’t think it has anything to do with your merit that you got saved.

It doesn’t.

God objectively chose you because He wanted to, not because you’re such an amazing person who hardly sins and could almost save yourself anyway.

We are the tax-collectors and sinners, the murderers and the pharisees.

For all of you germaphobes (and probably the rest of you as well), imagine a cup being passed around, and everyone spits into it. I’ve heard the analogy that Christ taking on our sins was like He took this cup full of spit and drank it.

You’re probably shuddering and very thankful that you don’t have to do that. Because somehow this image is more vivid to us than death.

I don’t know why that is, but I hope this gives you a picture of what your sins are.

But despite all this, God still chose to save us. He chose to drink that cup, to die that death. He wasn’t obligated to save any of us. He could have simply thrown out this world and restarted. But that was never His plan. From the beginning, He chose to die for us and love us as His children.

And how do we respond?

Most people know the answer—to love God. And most people know that Jesus charged us to take up our crosses and follow Him.

But how much do we really think about that command?

To take up our crosses—to die for him monthly, daily, hourly. To sacrifice ourselves to Him every moment of every day.

In the old testament, the people would sacrifice animals to God in the temple, foreshadowing the sacrifice that Jesus would make for us.

But now we are the temples of God. He dwells within us, and we are to be the pleasing aroma that those sacrifices once were.

And how do we do this? By sacrificing ourselves—our heart, soul, mind, and strength. By following His example, and giving our all for Him.

But taking up the cross isn’t easy.

It’s easy to think about taking up our crosses and following—it seems so noble and glorious—and in a way, it is.

And yet, in the image that is so common in our minds as we think about this, we often forget the pain.

We forget the fact that Jesus was nailed to that cross and hung there for hours.

Imagine the pain of having a stake driven through your hands and feet. Of being hung up on a piece of wood, splinters eating at your bare back and your own weight pulling at the nails as they work their way up, tearing through the sinews, veins, flesh, and bone of your hands. The flies buzzing around you as blood trickles down your arms. The watching, mocking eyes of hundreds of people.

And that’s what we’ve signed up for.

Being a Christian isn’t supposed to be a walk in the park. It’s not about everyone thinking you’re such a good person or thanking God for your comfortable mattress and large TV.

Many Christians might have this—and that is a blessing.

But it isn’t the goal, and it isn’t the standard.

We are the servants of God, and if humanity could crucify the Son of God, you’d better believe they can crucify you too.

But we are not our own.

It’s so tempting to think that we are free and can do what we please. But our lives are not about us. They are about God.

Because without Him, what are we? Nothing.

He has bought us with His blood, and it’s our job to act like it.

To follow His example. So don’t shy away from hard things. Tell the world that you belong to God, not Satan. Remind yourself that you don’t belong to yourself, and act like it. Give up what you have for others. Sacrifice yourself for your family, your friends, your neighbors, and even strangers.

Ask yourself what Christ would do in every situation, and do it.

And even though it will be hard—whether in the form of a missing meal that you gave up to feed another, an all-nighter at the hospital with a family member, or time in prison for your beliefs, which, by the way, still indirectly happens in countries like the United States—it will also be rewarding to do the will of our Heavenly Father.

So take up your cross, and follow Christ.