Take Up Your Cross!

Holy God!

Sinful man!

Irreconcilable difference!

The cross!  God's wrath poured out on a sinless sacrifice!

Reconciliation!  Beautiful reconciliation!

The cross is the place where truth and grace meet.  Law fulfilled.  Mercy extended.  Impossible reconciliation becomes possible.

"All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself..." (2 Corinthians 5:18a)

Christ took up His cross.  He made it possible for grace to be extended without truth being compromised.  If we are of those who have been reconciled by the cross to God, we are commanded to take up our cross daily...

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."  -Jesus (Mark 8:34; Matthew 16:24; Luke 9:23)

What is that cross?  It for sure can be a picture of many things...

In my younger years I thought that my cross was any hard thing that I was asked to "grin and bear."  At one point it was having five kiddos in the space of time that I was sure was meant for only two.  Another time it was having a husband who put in very long hours away from me and those same five kiddos. I bore...but I failed miserably in the grin department!  Growing definitely needed!

I remember listening to Joni Eareckson Tada some years later.  She said she had come to realize that her cross was not her wheelchair near as much as it was her attitude towards her wheel chair.  Light bulb moment for me!  For sure our attitudes, especially towards hard things and difficult people, can be something that we need to "crucify" on a daily basis.  So much truth and insight there and those words helped me grow up a bit when I heard them.

Over the past years I've been going through some very difficult things.  As is God's way, He doesn't take us through the hard stuff without a purpose - or rather two purposes!  Our good and His glory!  Today I see another way of looking at this picture of "taking up our cross"...

Old Testament or New - God has always been, and always will be, complete and perfect grace and truth!  Perfect love without compromising truth!  We are all called to the process of becoming more like Christ, who modeled for us the Father's perfection in these two characteristics.  "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)  In our sinful humanity, we are so bent toward being out of balance, towards pendulum swings one way or the other.  We have our full-of-truth people and our full-of-grace people.  Our my-way-or-the-highway bunch and our wouldn't-hurt-your-feelings-for-the-world folks.  And then sometimes in our effort to do it right, we react and swing totally opposite of our bent!  One group may look kinder than the other, and the other may look more bold than the first, but as for handling conflict God's Way, both are way off base!  Neither extreme gets God's results.

Perhaps one aspect of denying ourselves and taking up our cross has something to do with bringing those two together as we meet and interact with people every day.  Perhaps we are called to take up our cross by offering each person we meet grace and truth.  By speaking the truth in love! (Ephesians 4:15)  What a novel idea!!  ;)  "And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments (truth)." (2 John 1:6)  Perhaps we are called to the ministry of reconciliation in this world, not by destroying with harsh "truth" only, or deceiving with soft "grace" only.  I put these two words in quotes because real truth is not destructively harsh, and real grace is not mushily soft!

Another thing that real truth and real grace are not is comfortable!

Is it comfortable taking up that cross?  Was it comfortable for Jesus?  Are we called to "comfortable?"  Never!  Christ consistently calls us to uncomfortable things..."love your enemies; bless those who persecute you; outdo one another in showing honor; never be wise in your own sight; repay no one evil for evil; humble yourselves!"  And on and on...  We are constantly called to step out of our comfort zones!

If I am a "grace" person, that is a gift from God.  But that does not excuse me from exercising truth.  I am called to stop hiding behind the guise of a false grace, to stop lying to or running from my friends, family, church family... the people God has placed me into relationship with... and to step out of my comfort zone by taking up my cross and speaking the truth in love!

If I am a "truth" person, that is a gift from God.  But that does not excuse me from exercising grace.  I am called to stop spewing, leaking or insinuating destructive words (or looks) of "truth" and step out of my comfort zone by taking up my cross and speaking the truth in love!

"All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself... and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation."  (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)

We are called to be ministers of reconciliation.  It's at the cross that reconciliation takes place, both between God and man and on a different level, yet not really, between man and man.  Both are completely super-natural events!  The world is starved for both, Christian!  So let's get uncomfortable!  Let's ask God to grow us in the area we are less comfortable with.  Let's, each one of us, with a humble courage that can come only from the third Person of the Trinity, take up our cross!!!