Luk_9:23 And he said to them all, If any man will come
after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
'… The Lord says to
us that this cross is ours, for we each receive from God our own particular
cross. That is what we ought to bear. Although it is our cross, it nevertheless
is closely connected with the cross of the Lord. '
P198 The Spiritual
Man - by Watchman Nee
This is truth.
We each have our own
cross, to say otherwise is to lie. I can
look at you and imagine what your cross may be- there may be some obvious clues
to what your cross may look like - outward afflictions and such, but I can't
know truly what your cross is like to bear.
We each carry weight differently- mentally, emotionally and even
physically. If I carried twenty lbs of
cat food and you carry the same twenty lbs of cat food and your muscles are
stronger than mine, then it would be easier for you to carry than for me. Emotionally something could affect you more
than me, or me more than you- the gauge we go by is truly ours and no others.
There can't be a true standard. Society tries to imagine their standards based
upon majority reactions, and test results and other data they collect and they
make it the norm so that people tend to forget how truly individual we are in
so many ways. No two people can ever experience life in the same way simply
because we are not ever the same- not ever.
Our crosses are different, but we ALL have a cross.
However, not all of
us TAKE UP the cross that is ours.
Jesus said- IF… IF any man - meaning if WE choose to follow Him then we
choose to DENY ourselves, we TAKE up our cross DAILY and we follow Him.
The cross is the
life we choose to give up- the flesh life. We take up all the hardship of
DENYING ourselves and there are plenty of them. We take up the cross of
recognizing all the Spirit revealed flesh lusts in our lives and in the
recognition we submit to the spirit denying those flesh lusts. Daily we will be
allowed to see the SELF we must give up and that self is a terrible thing. We
bear the cross of being UNLIKE those who live to the flesh. There is persecution, there is ostracizing,
there is awkwardness, there is misunderstanding, there is ridicule, there is
death for those who choose to follow Christ. We take up a cross, we follow
Christ not to receive ANY earthly reward whatsoever! We do NOT follow Christ to
have a life of ease, to have a hotline to heaven for prayers to be answered in
our favor. When we choose to follow
Christ we must comprehend that we are choosing a life that will be ANYTHING BUT
EASY.
If we learn to deny
ourselves, to take up our cross we understand that our HOPE is in CHRIST'S
life, in the life HE PROMISES us, not in this life.
We are taking up the
cross of our Savior- His cross was one of self-denial, He lived solely for
OTHERS and He died for others.
Please LORD,
please. My heart cries out to You,
please let the Holy Spirit utter the things I can't begin to comprehend.
Please.
All in the name of
our Savior, Jesus Christ OUR LORD now and forever and ever!
Please.
Thy will be done.
No comments:
Post a Comment