Taking up my cross

 The Apostle Paul tells the Curch in Corinth that the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. There are two big thoughts that caught my attention. The first one is that salvation is a continuous process. There is a point that salvation is instantaneous, where we are covered by the blood of Christ and we enter into the family of God. Where salvation becomes continuous or a process is when we grow in grace. At our initial salvation experience, we get all of God, the continuous part is where God gets all of us. Call it maturing, becoming a living sacrifice, sanctification, or any other term, it is where we grow up and give our lives completely over to God. It is making God the Lord of every part of our life. 

  The second part is that the American church has glamorized the cross. We have turned into beautiful jewelry and artwork. The Romans had it as a brutal killing machine. The cross is a brutal way to go benevause not only do you suffocate to death, but you also drown in your own fluids. What makes it so brutal is that death is not instantaneous, but it takes several hours to accomplish.  The Romans were such good killing machines in the first century that they had crosses lined up and down the roads with people suffocating to death on them. So when Jesus tells His Disciples to pick up their cross and follow Him. I’m sure they felt like they were punched in the gut because they had a visual reminder on a consistent basis of what it means to pick up their cross, because it led to a brutal death.

  Jesus did pick up His cross and it led to being beaten, mocked and death. This is where the power of God comes in, because of Jesus obedience, God raised Him from the death three days later. If we are to be obedient to God and follow Him with our cross, we will be humiliated, beaten and maybe even die for our faith. But God is there for us and will sustain us along with walking along side of us and ahead of us. One day we will be with Him face to face for eternity.

  So what does it mean to pick up or cross to follow God. The basic answer is being a growing Christian and being in relationship with Him. There is also the things that God has called specifically to do. It’s often hard, our actions and motives will be questioned and there is a chance thy we will be alienated by those we hold dear to our hearts. This process will help us to see what is important and it is allowing God to sanctify us. The other part is that picking up our cross requires total abandonment. It is something we can not half ass. God does dot require apart of us but all of us every day.The cool part is that we get to rely on God more and that He will be made known to all the world. Here are my two questions:

  Have we beautified to where it has lost all its power and authority?

  What cross is God calling for us to pick up and to follow Him?