What Does “Deny Yourself and Take Up Your Cross” Really Mean?
Luke 9:23 contains one of Jesus’ most familiar—and challenging—statements “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” It sounds straightforward. Follow Jesus. Deny yourself. Take up your cross. But what did Jesus mean?
This passage is also a useful example of why the questions we ask about the Bible matter. A series of questions can appear to simply help us understand a passage while actually moving us toward a conclusion that has already been decided. Consider four questions that are sometimes used when studying this passage.
Question 1: Who is “anyone”?
The expected answer is usually: All of us. There is certainly something universal about Jesus’ invitation. He says, “If anyone wants to come after me.” Following Jesus isn't being restricted to Peter, the Twelve, or some special category of Christians. But notice the first interpretive move. We have gone from: “If anyone wants to come after me…” to: “Jesus is talking specifically about what every one of us must do.” Those statements sound almost identical, but they aren't quite the same. Jesus is describing what following him means for anyone who chooses that path. Before turning his statement into requirements for us, however, we should understand what following him meant to the people standing there. That requires us to back up.
What happened immediately before this?
In Luke 9:18–20, Jesus asks his disciples who people say he is. Peter answers: “God's Messiah.” That sounds like the right answer. But Jesus immediately begins explaining what kind of Messiah he is going to be: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Then comes verse 23: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” That context matters enormously. Jesus has just told his disciples that following him is not going where they probably imagined it was going. Their Messiah is heading toward rejection, suffering and death. Then Jesus essentially tells them: If you're going to follow me, understand where I'm going. That gives us a very different starting point for the next question.
Question 2: What does it mean to deny yourself and take up your cross?
This is an excellent question. But before answering it personally, we need to hear it as Jesus’ original audience might have heard it. Today the cross is a Christian symbol. We put crosses on church buildings. We wear them around our necks. We place them on Bibles, artwork and clothing. Jesus’ audience didn't have any of those associations. They knew the cross as an instrument of Roman execution. A person carrying a cross wasn't experiencing an inconvenience. He was walking toward death under the power of Rome. So when Jesus spoke about taking up a cross, his listeners weren't likely thinking:
“I need to give up something I enjoy.” The image was far more disturbing than that. And notice how naturally it follows verse 22. Jesus has just announced that he will suffer, be rejected and killed. Then: If you're going to follow me, take up your cross. Jesus is describing allegiance to a Messiah whose path leads through rejection and suffering rather than power, status and victory as they might have expected them. That doesn't make self-denial less demanding. It makes it much bigger.
Question 3: Is this like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane?
Another common step is to connect Luke 9:23 with Jesus’ prayer in Matthew 26:36–39. Facing his arrest and death, Jesus prays: “Not as I will, but as you will.” There is certainly a meaningful connection. Jesus willingly submits himself to the path before him even though it will involve tremendous suffering. But we should notice something important about our Bible-reading process. Luke 9 does not make this connection for us. We made it.
That doesn't automatically make the connection wrong. Scripture can illuminate Scripture, and later events can certainly help us understand earlier teachings. But there is a difference between saying: “Gethsemane gives us a powerful example of costly obedience.” and saying: “Gethsemane defines what Jesus meant by ‘deny yourself’ in Luke 9.” The first is an observation. The second is an interpretation that needs to be demonstrated. That distinction becomes especially important because of what happens next.
Question 4: What is going to be the hardest thing for you to deny?
This can be a valuable question for personal reflection. Following Jesus undoubtedly affects our desires, priorities, decisions and loyalties. But notice how far we've traveled. We began with Jesus telling his disciples that the Messiah will suffer and be rejected. Then: “Anyone” became “you.”
Then: “Deny yourself” became surrendering your personal will.
Then: Gethsemane became the model for that surrender.
And finally: What are YOU unwilling to give up?
We have moved from interpreting Jesus’ words in Luke's story to examining someone's personal level of commitment. That may produce a meaningful conversation. But is that what Luke 9:23–26 was originally trying to accomplish? That's a question worth wrestling with.
Watch What the Questions Are Doing
This passage provides an important Bible-reading lesson that goes beyond Luke 9. Questions are not always neutral. Watch the progression:
Text → Universalize → Define → Supply the Definition → Personalize
Each individual step can sound completely reasonable. But put them together and something interesting happens. The questions begin determining the answer. By the time someone reaches:
“What is going to be the hardest thing for you to deny?” several interpretive decisions have already been made for them. The conversation is no longer primarily about what Luke meant. It has become a conversation about whether the person sitting across from us is sufficiently committed. This is why learning to ask better questions of the Bible matters. Before asking: “What does this mean for me?”
we need to ask: “What did this mean there?”
Keep Reading
Verses 24–26 help clarify Jesus’ point: “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.” Jesus continues talking about losing one's life, gaining the whole world, and being ashamed of him and his words. This is the language of allegiance and cost. Jesus is asking people whether they will follow a Messiah who is about to be rejected—even when association with him may carry a tremendous price.
That is much more challenging than identifying one habit, possession, relationship or desire that we should give up. The question isn't merely: “What should I deny myself?” It is closer to: “What does allegiance to Jesus look like when following him costs me something?”
So Does Jesus Call Us to Deny Ourselves?
Yes. We don't need to soften Jesus’ words to question how they are sometimes used. Following Jesus isn't simply adding him to an otherwise unchanged life. Luke repeatedly presents discipleship as something capable of disrupting our assumptions, priorities, loyalties and expectations.
But that is different from turning Luke 9:23 into a test designed to determine whether someone's previous decision to follow Jesus was wholehearted enough. The passage does not give us a checklist for evaluating whether another person's conversion counts. It gives us a picture of the costly road of following Jesus. And perhaps there is something particularly important in the order Jesus gives us:
“Follow me.” The disciples don't understand everything when they begin following Jesus. They learn while following. They misunderstand him. They argue. They fail. They become afraid. They sometimes resist the very path Jesus tells them he must take. Yet Jesus continues teaching and forming them. Discipleship isn't presented as something we completely understand and perfectly commit to before we're allowed to begin. It is a life of learning what following Jesus actually means.
A Better Question
Instead of ending with only: “What is going to be the hardest thing for you to deny?” perhaps Luke invites us to wrestle with something larger:
Am I willing to follow Jesus even when the path he takes is different from the one I expected? And there is one more question worth learning to ask whenever we study Scripture: Are the questions I'm being asked helping me discover what the text means—or are they quietly leading me toward a conclusion someone has already chosen? Sometimes examining the question is the first step toward understanding the answer.