Tag: Jesus (Page 5 of 22)

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Which Cross are You Carrying? Suffering or Love?

Suffering

This is a follow-up to my post, Take Up Your Cross. In the previous post, I made the confession “I no longer believe taking up your cross is all about suffering. I find it has so much more to do with grace, humility, hope and love.” God has been churning that confession in my heart. As such, I believe it deserves expounding. 

As Christians, we are familiar with Luke 9:23 “If any of you want to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me.” Most often, the most familiar teaching attached to this verse has to do with the suffering associated with following Jesus – and how we have to choose to partake in His suffering (i.e. taking up our cross.) We made suffering “the way” of Jesus. 

I would suggest there is a greater lesson to be understood. I am not discounting any sermons associated with this passage or the fact that we are called to join Jesus in His suffering. However, we, or at least I, have often missed the bigger picture of Jesus’ instructions for following Him.

Does Following Mean Suffering?

Every time Jesus talks about others hating us or suffering as His followers (Matthew 10:22Matthew 24:9John 15:19-22 and Acts 9:16) He tells us it will happen as a result of following Him. I believe the reigning choice, is not to suffer, but rather to follow Him, which will inevitably include suffering. Most specifically, I suggest we may have been focusing on an outcome, when in fact the focus is on being His follower. Suffering will come, but after the choice to follow.

He never gave us the choice to suffer, except in following Him. Nor does He command us to suffer. He doesn’t say, “Follow me by suffering”. He never commands suffering, but tells us, if you choose me you will be hated and suffer. He also assures trials and tribulation. He doesn’t say we can avoid it, or that we can choose when, where or what. He is clear suffering will come. So suffering isn’t the choice, but taking up our cross is. Remember “If”?

I’ve been praying and meditating on what the practical and visible choice of taking up our cross looks like. I’m convinced it’s love. Jesus said love God, love others, love each other, and make disciples. I’m confident that our choice to love others is the cross Jesus meant for us to take up. Here’s why. Like I mentioned in the previous post, Jesus made it a habit of turning what we thought we knew on its ear. He routinely changed how we interpreted following God. The cross is no exception. He took an instrument of pain, suffering, and death and turned it into a vehicle of love, forgiveness, and life. Since His crucifixion, the cross hasn’t been seen the same way. We even wear them on chains around our necks!

Love, Not Suffering

Jesus didn’t come for the sake of suffering. He came for the sake of love. What happened to Him while on earth as a man should never overshadow why He allowed it to happen to Him. It was because of His love for us. Telling us to take up our cross has little to do with suffering. Instead, He asks us to choose to turn from our selfishness, love others (that is taking up our cross) and follow Him. Loving those that are lovable is easy, but try loving those that aren’t. It feels a lot like cross bearing when we have to CHOOSE to love someone we don’t want to love, or feel is undeserving.

Our choice is not to suffer. Our choice is to love God and love others, which sometimes brings suffering. Suffering is not the way of His followers; love is the way of His followers. We choose daily to love God, and everyone else that we come in contact with, regardless of how we feel about them. And every day we choose which cross we will bear.

Are you carrying the cross of suffering? Or are you carrying the cross of love?

Take Up Your Own Cross…

…then, when it becomes too heavy, ask someone to help you carry it.

Your Cross

photo credit: theramp.org

In the past I’ve struggled to understand what Jesus meant in Luke 9:23 when He said, “…take up his cross daily…” I get the sharing in suffering with Jesus part, and the theology behind it, but I’m no longer content with just knowing the theology. I need to know the deeper, soul stirring intimacy of daily taking up my cross with Jesus. I’ve read The Ragamuffin Gospel and it’s helped me understand a little. I no longer believe it is all about suffering. I believe taking up the cross has so much more to do with grace, humility, hope, and love.

At my core, I believe community is necessary. Even imperative. Because of that, I feel confident that cross carrying is a gospel-centered community event. For some time, I did not have the scriptural grounds to support my belief. However, it made sense to me.

Jesus’ Cross

In meditating on the moment where Jesus carried His cross to Calvary, God paused my heart. When Jesus fell under the crushing weight of His cross, a man named Simon of Cyrene, lifted it and carried it with Him.

Jesus undoubtedly could have carried the cross for days, unabated. But there is something so profound happening here, that if missed, will cause us to struggle unnecessarily and significantly. What Jesus said in Luke 9:23, He explains and demonstrates in Luke 23:26 at the moment Simon carries His cross.

In their culture, it was disgraceful to carry a condemned man’s cross. Jesus would have known that. But, just as with everything else, Jesus turned what was known on its ear. God the Son could have carried His own cross. However, Jesus knew we were not capable of such a feat. So He carried His cross in the flesh, as a man. Jesus the man was broken and weak from exhaustion and blood loss. Jesus the man NEEDED Simon to carry His heavy burden with Him. In that moment, Jesus showed us communal cross bearing is the way for His followers. We are not made or called to carry our cross alone. Jesus is there. And He has provided His people. We pick up ours and other’s crosses. We do it together and we call it church and community and grace and love.

Your Cross

If Jesus expected us to carry our cross alone, He would have done the same. But He didn’t. And He does not expect us to go it alone. Jesus provided us with the accounting of His own need for help in carrying His cross. Now we have the confidence that our Savior knows and understands just how hard it can be to be alone. And even more so, He showed us the importance of community stepping up and in, to lighten our burden.

Whether you ask for help, or are Simon for another, rest assured that Jesus does not want us to allow others to suffer alone, or for you to go it alone.

“…when it becomes too heavy, ask someone to help you carry it.”

Does God Want Us to “Get Over” Our Past?

past

used from www.careerealism.com

I recently had a conversation with my friend about how we heal from our past emotional wounds. While we talked he shared some of his that he is still healing from. Toward the end of the conversation my friend shared a quote he had heard at a conference. The speaker said something along the lines of, “I don’t care about your past. God doesn’t care about your past. So we need to stop worrying about our past and just get over it.”

You know those times when someone says something so profound that it drives down deep into your heart? This was not one of those times. Instead I immediately felt that everything about that statement was wrong. Specifically I have two issue with this statement.

Biblical Accuracy

First, I do not think it is biblical. I looked for this idea in the bible and could not find it. My friend did not explicitly say that the speaker referenced a specific verse, but my assumption is that this comment is based on taking scripture like Philippians 3:13-14 out of context. In this verse Paul talks about “forgetting what lies behind.” This passage speaks to God’s promise and our need to forget our past transgressions, or sins, for the purpose of moving toward God unrestricted by them. This passage also reminds us to not lean on His past mercies, but instead depend on His new grace for today. His mercies are new every morning.

Our Influence

Whether your audience is one guy sitting across from you at Starbucks or a stadium of 10,000 people, you have to be aware of what you are telling them. When you step into the role of counselor, or in this case leader, what you say matters. Chances are the person is coming to you because they trust what you might tell them. If what you tell them does not line up with scripture, then stop and consider the implications of your advice before you say it. In almost every situation, “Just get over it” is likely poor advice and will only serve to make the situation more difficult.

Sadly, I know all too well that trying to “stop worrying about and just get over” deep emotional wounds is nearly impossible, if at all. There are some wounds that are so deep that they require Jesus and an intentional approach toward seeking healing. As a trusted leader, teacher or coach you must be careful in what you say because people will take it to heart.

The Truth About your past

There are parts of our past that God forgets about, but those parts are our sins, not our hurts. And to be clear, Him forgetting is not the same as Him not caring. In fact, God cares so much about our sin that He sent His son to earth to die and atone for our sin because He could not bear to be without us. That is how much He cares. In our confession Jesus, God casts off our sin. That is the extent of God’s forgetfulness.

Just as with our sin, God cares about our hurts. God does not need or want you to “just get over” your past; He wants to heal you from it and provide purpose for it. God’s desire to heal us from our past is most evident in the fact that He sent Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Routinely Jesus makes allusions to Himself being the Great Physician, sent to heal us. When speaking of the Holy Spirit, Jesus refers to Him as a Helper and the Amplified translation includes the variations on the translation of that word: Comforter, Advocate, and Counselor. If God aimed for us to “just get over” our past then the characteristic of Healer and Comforter would not have been present in Jesus or the Holy Spirit.

God cares about our hurt and even more about healing them. Our inability to “get over” our past is not an indictment of God’s ability heal it. Nor is it one of His faithfulness to us, but rather it reveals our deeper need for Him. We heal as the Holy Spirit gently moves us through the difficulties of our past, revealing purpose, intent upon us coming out the other end whole and closer to God.

Healing takes a lot of time and prayer, but take heart for “surely He has borne our grief and carried our sorrows.

 

 

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