In Matthew 16:24 Jesus says to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Christians have often taken the bite out of this saying of Jesus by looking at it very passively. We erroneously believe that if God wants us to bear a cross He will give us one. Then we pray like crazy that God would give us a little cross that is easy to bear, something like crooked teeth or having to drive an old Chevy.But there is really only one cross and that is the same one that Christ was nailed to. He also needed help carrying his cross and thanks to Simon, the guy from Cyrene, he got it. If we think that we have been able to sneak through life with a Popsicle stick cross, it is time to find the cross of Christ and begin to hoist it. What I mean is that we must find the suffering, the oppressed, the depressed, and those that really need help and begin to lift the heavy burden that they have been bearing. This will probably mean getting out of our comfortable existence to enter into their uncomfortable one. But this is exactly what Jesus is asking us to do. Paul reiterates this when he says to the Galatians, “Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” They never said it was going to be easy.
Bearing the real cross of Christ is a very powerful thing for us to do. I have seen pe
ople take the sick and suffering into their homes and watched as they shared the burden with each other. I love to see people “adopt” a disabled person and become that person’s family. These are powerful things that would re-image the entire church of Christ if we could just get more and more people to imitate him. What do you think? Should Christians do more to actively bear the cross of Christ?
Yes definitely, but one thing that I think hinders us from doing it effectively is our highly individualistic culture. Compared to other cultures, we tend to be very closed in. We often avoid even making eye contact with people we don't know, much less trying to get to know them or offer help to them. We need to pray for God to help us break from this cultural barrier and to open our eyes to the people around us; and then, as we see the needs, to break our hearts so that we are compelled to reach out and help them.
ReplyDeleteEsau says...
ReplyDeleteWe as Christians must carry others crosses it seems to me we quickly weary when those who cross we bear give little support to carrying their own cross. When Jesus went out of his way to meet the lepers he carried their cross by healing them but only one came back to thank Jesus. Did this lack of thankfulness bother Jesus?
Lack of thankfulness certainly can make it harder to keep helping someone else in the bearing their cross. No doubt Jesus was in fact bothered by lack of thankfulness, although not for any selfish reasons that, speaking for myself, are sometimes part of our human weakness. But, we can be encouraged by the fact that Jesus did experience some of these same feelings that we do and so he sympathizes with us and encourages us to keep going.
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