"If anyone desires to come
after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow
Me" (Luke 9:23).
Some time ago, I was speaking to a group in
another city about how we interfere with the work, the grace of God in
our lives, relating it to the cross. When the message was over, I left
the room to enter a nearby kitchen area, where I was resting for a
moment and drinking a cup of hot tea before returning home. A lady came
up to me and said, "My son!" I waited and
she continued, "My son is the cross in my life!"
I then understood what she meant.
One of the points in the talk in another city
was about perceiving and receiving our "cross."
We are promised the “cross” in places like
our Scripture for today, but often don't know what it is, don’t
recognize it when we see it, and we often pray He will get rid of the
very "cross" He has given that would enable
us to grow in the faith that all of us need.
She had been praying diligently for her son to
change, for her own responses to be different; for ANYTHING to make life
easier and better for her and her son. She prayed for years about the
situation from every aspect except one: ACCEPTANCE. She had not yet
acknowledged that God is sovereign in EVERYTHING, including the
relationship she had, actually the one she didn't have, with her son.
"Faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17) is one of the
great "cornerstone" verses of Scripture. It was written in relation to a
discussion about the nation Israel, and yet it has application for every
one of us. Paul, the human author of those words, continued, "But I say, have they (has Israel)
not heard? Yes, indeed" (Romans 10:18).
Israel did hear, and like them, we often hear
the good things of God but our faith tends to not grow because we do not
understand. Sometimes the Word of God will say to you in response to
your prayer, "Wait" (Psalm 27:14), but that
is NOT the message we long to hear. Note, however, that this is not
simply "waiting," like you wait for a bus on a street corner. This is "Wait on the LORD" (Psalm 27:14), "be of good courage, and HE shall strengthen your heart; Wait,
I say, on the Lord." And this “wait”
tends to be far different than we would imagine.
WHO you wait for is WHY it makes sense to wait!
There was a lady of 100 years ago, a "Mrs. Rounds"
(as it is related in the book, "Streams in the
Valley"), who wrote of her boy:
"When my little son was
about ten years of age, his grandmother promised him a stamp album for
Christmas. Christmas came, but no stamp album, and no word from
grandmother. The matter, however, was not mentioned, but when his
playmates came to see his Christmas presents, I was astonished, after he
had named this and that as gifts received, to hear him add, 'and a stamp
album from grandmother.'"
“Literally months passed,
and Mrs. Rounds wrote of the belief her boy continued to have in the
faithfulness of his grandmother, and finally, the letter came: ‘My dear
Georgie, I have not forgotten my promise to you of an album. I tried to
get such a book as you desired, but could not get the sort you wanted;
so I mailed for one to New York. It did not get here till after
Christmas, and it was still not right, so I sent for another, and as it
has not come as yet, I send you three dollars to get one in Chicago.
Your loving grandma…’"
Mrs. Rounds reported the next words of her son:
“‘See, Momma, didn't I tell you?’ and she went on
– ‘this came from the depths of a heart that never doubted… that the
stamp album would come.’" That grandmother did not forget and
neither does our Lord.
God never has and never will forget you. What
you need is already accomplished, and it has been sent to you, written
in the blood of Jesus Christ. If you sum up the contents of that letter,
it says, "I love you; I have heard your prayer, and it is ANSWERED!" The
answer might not be what (or when) you would expect, but He cares for
you and His answer is on the way.
There was a Bible translation of years ago,
called the "Weymouth" version, which
presented Mark 11:24, this way: "Have faith that
whatever you ask for in prayer is already granted you, and you will find
that it will be." And that is utterly true for you and me.
What, by the way, is your cross? It may take
various forms in your life and may be presented through more than one
person or circumstance. It may be sent through MANY people, who have no
idea of the function they serve in relation to you. In answering the
additional question, "What is the area of greatest PAIN in your life?"
You may well find the answer to the question, "What is your cross?”
"If anyone desires to come
after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow
Me" (Luke 9:23), is for you and me right now. We read words like
these, and so often we have no idea of the reality of the cross for each
one of us personally as it is supposed to work in our lives.
When we commemorate the death of our Lord Jesus
in taking communion, we not only express thanks for what He has done,
but also we offer ourselves in kind. "Just as You have offered Yourself
to me, Lord Jesus, I give myself to you." It's the same thing in
baptism, which teaches, "as many of us as were
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death" (Romans
6:3). To come into Christ is to receive His cross, His death. The
wonderful news is that we also have His resurrection – right now. We
die, but we also LIVE, better than before.
In marriage, we are to be "submitting to one another in the fear of God"
(Ephesians 5:21). "Submitting" means that I
am willing to give up what I want because my love is greater than my
need for the things of life. We can't live sacrificially in our own
strength, which must lead us to the "ACCEPTANCE" we must have, like the
lady who accepted that her son was her cross.
To be on the "cross"
is to lose control over the events that are around you. The cross will
bring pain and you can do nothing about it. The cross will also set you
free. Often the very one you love the most is the cross in your life.
You give them EVERYTHING and sometimes get nothing in return. I never
met my mother-in-law, who passed on, years before I met my wife. But she
would take her children's pains and "kiss them up
to God," as she put it, in prayer. It’s time for us to ACCEPT the
work of God in our lives and “kiss it up to God.”
He hears you.
Lord, we bring you our aches, our pains, our
sorrows and our needs. We don't understand the "cross" in our lives - we
just need You. We give You our troubles, our aches and our fears, and we
trust in You now. Deepen us, that we may accept Your will. Thank You for
the cross, for Your love. In Jesus Name. Amen.
