Cross-walkers

The hour for the Son of Man to be glorified had come, and Jesus said, "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall My servant also be; if anyone serves Me the Father will honor him." John 12:23-26

That hour for Jesus Christ was death on a cross and resurrection from the grave three days later. In His day, death by crucifixion wasn't just the most painful method of execution, it was equally humiliating. The criminal was required to carry his own crossbeam to his death, where he was hung as a spectacle, often stripped naked. Only the lowest of society was subjected to this form of punishment.
And this was the death Jesus took to bear the punishment for our sin.
But before He faced that cross, Jesus said,
 "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." Luke 9:23
John Piper titles a chapter in 5o Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die, "to create a band of crucified followers".  He writes "when Christ went to the cross, his aim was to call a great band of believers after Him. The reason for this was not that Jesus must die again today, but that we must. When He bids us take up His cross, He means come and die." Jesus wants those who follow Him to be cross-walkers, to be believers who will walk in the Spirit with a cross on their back.
In other words, Jesus is telling us, that to follow Him, we must wake up everyday with a death sentence; we must be dead men walking.

Well, the hour for a decision has come.
What will you do with your flesh?
To truly walk in the Spirit, we must crucify the flesh. To crucify the flesh, we must die to self.
Will you be one of Jesus's crucified followers?
Will you learn to crosswalk?

"So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh, for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, 'Abba! Father!'" Romans 8:12-15

By the Spirit, we put to death the deeds of the body, then we truly live, even live free of fear.
But instead of executing the flesh, I see us pampering it. We keep it alive because we want to feel good, or we rely on it to do the "good" that others can see, to build our confidence and sense of self-worth. This is the essence of what trips us up, of what makes us feel that we aren't growing spiritually, of what makes us so tired of ourselves. We have such confidence in our flesh, that we trust it to be the voice of reality in our lives, to be telling us the truth of our identity in Christ.
Could we possibly be more deceived than that?!
It is flesh's crowning triumph of deception, but sadly for us, it is a snare of lies and fear.