Taking up your cross means risking giving up control …

Amazon has come up with something that is a stroke of genius, a brilliant idea that will likely boost the company’s already astronomic sales.

This great new feature is a cell phone app called “Amazon AR View” (you can learn more about it by clicking here). The company is promoting the concept via the commercial below, take 30 seconds to watch it …

What’s brilliant about this is that many people are hesitant about buying furniture for their home from a website — or even other places — if they can’t adequately envision what the items would look like in their own home. Now, using “augumented reality (AR)” technology via the app, you can “see” what any piece of furniture Amazon sells would look like in your room. In fact, you can use the app to design spaces and rooms in your own home with furniture the company would like to sell you.

The idea is use of AR technology removes the risk of your not liking what Amazon’s household products would look like in your home, and enables you to keep control over your purchasing decisions.

Maintaining control while mitigating risks of regretful purchases will likely thrill many shoppers and result in greater sales for Amazon.

It seems Amazon understands something about human behavior — when considering bringing something into our lives (or homes), we’re afraid of losing control and taking risks.

That was a big struggle for those who initially followed Jesus.

That’s because He demanded they take the risk of giving up control of their lives to Him. Notice how, even before Jesus ever made His journey to the cross, He taught taking up our own cross as an ethic:

“Then he said to the crowd, ‘If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me,” Luke 9:23.

You cannot maintain control while denying yourself and shouldering a cross.

The problem those who listened to Jesus had about turning control of their lives over to Him was that He wasn’t at all like the image of a Messiah they had pictured. They expected a political deliverer who would come and strike down Rome and re-establish the “glory days” of Israel. Instead, this is what they heard from Jesus …

“From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead,” Matthew 16:21.

The disciples of Jesus wrestled with what submitting their lives to someone who taught something like this would look like. What would life be like if they added a Lord who taught something so different than what they expected? If only they had an “AR View” app so they could see what it would really be like to follow and obey a leader who said He would be killed!

Like the disciples, we so often push against Jesus for fear of what losing control and taking the risk to fully trust and obey Him would look like in our own lives. We have our own images in our minds of how we would like our lives to be “decorated,” just how much change would occur if we really let Jesus in as Lord?

In the end, many who entertained the idea of following Jesus finally, turned and went home. They just couldn’t imagine taking the risk of letting Jesus into their lives and homes as Lord. Jesus said those who don’t have a “spiritual AR View app” and trust Him will be blessed — well kind of — when He said:

“Then Jesus told him, ‘You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me,'” John 20:29.

Are you hedging your full faith and obedience in Jesus for fear of not knowing the change He would bring into your life as your Lord?

Scotty