A couple weeks ago at church, our music minister filled in for our senior pastor in the pulpit. Caleb shared with me that he and the Lord had been able to spend months preparing for this message and wondered and admired how Dean does this every week! ☺ The Lord did, indeed, use Caleb that day…especially in my heart…as I am still thinking on the verses and thoughts that he shared. They were especially poignant leading up to the verses that were read last night at the Good Friday service.
We have been studying the book of Matthew and we were in chapter 16 when Jesus was speaking to the disciples about what was about to happen to him. In verses 24-26 it reads,
“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whosoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”
The question was posed if we had ever considered what it meant for us to “take up our cross?” The majority of us have never endured the pain, torture, humiliation, and persecution that the cross represents. So how do we take up our cross and follow Him? The cross for Christ meant ultimate forgiveness for a world of people who didn’t deserve or even ask for it. He willingly offered forgiveness because He and the Father have a covenant relationship with His created people. He loves us and wants us to be restored to Him...and paid the ultimate sacrifice for it. Covenant relationships start with forgiveness. That is our cross. We don’t want to forgive. We want to hold on to our grievances, our pride, our justice, our pain. In the process, we lose family, friends, church members…we lose relationship.
“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times? “Jesus answered,
“I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
Matthew 18: 21-22
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”
1 Corinthians 13:4-6
“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
Ephesians 4:31-32
“Who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied, by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”
Isaiah 53
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
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