Take Up Your Cross (Part II)

No one understands the passion of Christ so thoroughly or heartily as the man whose lot it is to suffer the like himself.

The cross, is always ready; it awaits you everywhere. No matter where you may go, you cannot escape it, for wherever you go you take yourself with you and shall always find yourself. Turn where you will—above, below, without, or within—you will find a cross in everything, and everywhere. You must have patience if you would have peace within and merit an eternal crown. 
            - Thomas a Kempis
       (The Imitation Of Christ)

You may ask what has brought you here, but the most important fact, for now, is Who has brought you here. You have heard that God’s love for you is indescribable. The cross that you bear is an act of His love. It sounds strange and you may think opposite, but His love for you has led you here.

You thought that you were trapped in sin, assured of misfortune, and convinced of something sinister. None of these are true. The love of God has designed the road marked before you.

Resist the temptation of unbelief and self pity (a slow death). Follow Him...follow Him toward the hill Golgotha. After some distance the road of suffering will rise, giving you a view of your point of origin.

Look...look again. The horror of your own iniquity. You have journeyed only a stone’s throw from the moment you embraced your cross, outside the camp. Yet even now, you see yourself and your sin which you loathe, the mire from which the cross has lifted you. To break free...yields brokenness with tears and moans which cannot be uttered. Oswald Chambers wrote “the only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow”.

The cross of Christ frees us from the shackles that enslave us to our sinful nature. When the penitent and the cross meet, they become one and embrace the way of suffering for His sake. Only then does the royal way of the holy cross break through the darkness, revealing glory like you have never, never known before.

You must walk where He walked, bearing the cross, and despising the shame. Where does it end? To sit down at the right hand of the throne of God for all eternity.

Thomas & Stone

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