Taking Up Our Cross

Taking Up Our Cross

Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”

Luke 9:23

As we consider our text from the past two days, we arrive at the next thing which Christ sets before those who desire to ‘come after’ Him. Beyond the self-denial of which we spoke yesterday, there is the hard matter of ‘taking up our cross daily.’ Each of us has a peculiar cross which is ours alone to bear. For some of us it is debilitating disease or chronic pain. For others it is the cross of being the solitary saved individual in a family. For others it is poverty. For still others it is the long term effects of trauma or the results of someone else’s sin which leaves us scarred for life within and without. These are but a few examples of many we could cite. Christ understands these crosses, and for His Glory He would have us take them up daily and bear them. These are the crosses which He Himself bears with us. He enables us to bear what we could in no way bear ourselves by upholding us with His Own Almighty Arm. Again, He has shown us what it means to bear the cross, by doing so Himself. We are not left to sort our own cross-bearing without His Perfect Example. Today, as we take up our cross, let us look to Him Who bore His cross before us.

Our most Excellent and Wise Savior,
we praise You that You have borne Your cross before us.
We rejoice that you have fitted our cross for us perfectly
and that by Your strength, we shall be able to bear it.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning