THE CHRISTIAN CROSS
Take up your cross daily and follow Christ!
Take up your cross daily and follow Christ!
Matthew 16:24-25 Galatians 6:14 Matthew 10:37-38
WHAT DID THE CROSS MEAN TO JESUS?
Isaiah 53:3-7
The Burden He Bore For Those Who Believe
The Burden He Bore For Those Who Believe
Mark 15:34
The Worst Part!
The Worst Part!
Luke 22:44
The Terrible Agony
The Terrible Agony
Luke 22:42
His Submission
His Submission
What Does the Cross Mean For Christians?
There are many ideas about what the cross means among professing
Christians in this generation. For some it is a decoration for their shelf
or mantel, for others it is an emblem on top of a steeple or hanging on
the wall in the church building, and for others it is a piece of jewelry that
adorns their neck. For some church goers it is even a good luck charm
they believe wards off evil or something to cry over without knowing why.
For most the belief concerning the cross has no real basis in scripture.
For many Christians and even some cultists the cross is symbolic of
what Christ did on Calvary, and rightly so, however that meaning only
applies to Christ and his sacrifice for us and doesn't fully express what
the cross means in the life of the Christian beyond salvation. There is,
however a cross that Christians are supposed to carry daily and many
churches never preach on this most important subject at all. This is a
travesty of great proportions and creates psuedo-Christianity in them
and leaves the world to rightly mock Christianity as a weak religion!
What is the meaning of the cross in the life of those who really want to
give themselves completely to the one who gave himself completely
for them? Deitrich Bonhoeffer, who lived during the time of Hitler and
who wrote in his book The Cost of Discipleship, "Can we honestly
think that what cost the Son of God his life will cost us nothing?" was
executed for his refusal to turn from Christ. Evidently he believed his
cross was more than rhetoric. I wonder what we would do in his place.
Taking up our cross daily and following Christ means far more than we
realize or perhaps more than we want to admit. It involves death to the
self-life, it means preferring others before ourselves, it means humbling
ourselves and living sacrifically so that others might find life in Christ.
It may mean sleepless nights drenched in tears for the lost and dying
world we live in. It may mean giving up the things that are temporal and
focusing our lives on things that are eternal to the point of denying our
personal preferences to obey God irrespective or what we might want.
It may mean leaving our little world and going out into the highways and
byways of life, going to another country to reach the lost, getting involved
in prison ministry, coffee house ministry, or street evangelism instead of
sitting in front of a television and wasting precious time when time is at a
premium and we begin to see things from an eternal perspective. It is in
moving past our shallow views and our focusing on this life that we lose
sight of the most important thing - preparing for eternity. We are all too
easily lulled into fussing about the things on earth including our jobs,
recreation, families, and creature comforts and we become ineffective in
reaching out to those who are unprepared for eternity, and we make our
excuses and go on with life day after day in innocuous bliss or carnal fear
of losing what is precious to us while multitudes are rushing toward Hell
and eternal hopelessness without Christ. Is it any wonder that those who
live around us and observe our lives and hear our words refuse to take us
seriously when we tell them about what Christ has done for all mankind?
We must wake up! We must pray that God will clear our vision so that we
might begin to live and think of eternal things and put the temporal things
in their rightful place! Christ didn't die and resurrect so that Chistians may
hoard materialistic possessions and live comfortable and without pain or
suffering. He died that we might live unto him and die to ourselves so he
might receive the reward of his suffering. He suffered and rose again so
that we might have eternal life and share that life with everyone within our
sphere of life that we possibly can. We have been thoughtless and selfish
to believe that we can bask in the light of God's love while never telling
others of the grace and mercy that is available to them and excusing our
ignorance in one way or another. God is not pleased! He has been calling
those who know him to cast off the shackles of this world and begin to act
as if we believe what we say we believe. There are millions of souls at stake
and the day of reckoning has come for millions already, and we have never
cared enough to warn them of their impending doom. We must die to self
that others may live. We must take up our cross and follow Jesus even if it
means dying physically that others might find eternal life through Christ
working in and through us for his glory and honor and praise! Let's not just
say we love Jesus with words but let's prove it by our obedience to him!
Read Matthew Chapter 27 to Grasp the Humiliation he Suffered for All Mankind !
