WHO WANTS to carry a cross? Does anyone?
It’s heavy. The weight digs into your back. You might slip and fall as you carry it. The wood might give you a hard knock on the head or crush your hand.
Who in the world wants to carry a cross? You don’t. I don’t. But we will if we have to. We will if it glorifies God.
The cross is facing failure, humiliation, and shame. It’s carrying addiction, betrayal, illness, loss, and lies.
It’s having to say the hard words. It’s having to set limits and stand firm. It’s giving of your deepest self — even when you’re unsure and deathly afraid.
The cross is willing to take the hurt to give life — even if they say they hate you for it.
It’s struggling along with someone who can’t carry their cross alone.
The cross is messy, bloody, excruciating — and you thirst.
You must deny yourself, the Lord tells you. You must lose your life for his sake and for the sake of the Gospel.
Why does it have to be this way? Why all the pain and the blood and the sorrow?
The Lord told us simply: to save your life you must follow him — to the cross — to the resurrection — to God the Father in heaven — to glory upon glory.
Only the Spirit can fully explain this to you.
So look upon the Son of Man carrying his cross. And hoist yours with courage.
Sometimes you will fall. You will look up to heaven and ask ‘why’? But keep going. The Spirit will give you the strength you never knew you had.
Follow the Lord to Calvary, and see him hanging there for you. So many answers given to you there, nailed to the cross.
For he is the doorway to salvation — and freedom forever more.
Follow Him.
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And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.
Mark 8:34-35
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