The cross we are to carry….
No matter which way you hold it, look at it, explain it, the meaning of the cross of Easter, that which our Lord and Saviour was crucified on at Calvary, speaks of one thing only – death!
The horror of the treatment meted out to Jesus through the hideous and brutal death by crucifixion is often raised as a question by many. Why such a manner of death? Many people have tried over time to explain but in my opinion for what it is worth, I am not sure we can ever truly fathom the depth to this question fully.
But, I am sure that one incredible point of such a death that is highlighted, is that this death showed the very real horror of the nature of sin without equivocation. Sin is brutal, cruel, violent, unforgiving and the very antithesis of all that represents and is God – for God is love!
But what of the cross then that Christ commands us to carry who would call Him Lord and follow Him? Luk 9:23 Then He said to [them] all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
God has ordered that our flesh be put to death. “If ye by the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh then ye shall live” (Romans 8:13). “Know ye not that your old man was crucified with Christ?” (Romans 6:6) God does not have any program of reform for your flesh.
Paul said, “I know in me (that is, in my flesh,) there dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). And God has ordered the complete extermination of the flesh; not to live after the flesh; not to walk after the flesh; but to reckon that old man, the old nature, to be dead and to give no place to the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. And God has provided that through the cross of Jesus Christ I might be able to reckon my old man to be dead with Christ. As Paul wrote, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life that I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
The truth is this: God has ordered your flesh to be put to death, crucified, reckon it to be dead, give no place for it. If you, as King Saul sadly did in (1 Samuel 15), fail to obey the command of God and you continue to make provisions for your flesh, that is, you continue to live after the flesh or you allow an area, “Well, it’s just a little area that I’m indulging my flesh,” you can be sure that your incomplete obedience to God’s command of the destruction of the flesh will come back someday to destroy you, and to destroy your spiritual walk in life.
We are to make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its desires, its lust. We’re to walk after the Spirit; we’re to live after the Spirit, making no provisions for the flesh.
Easter, the cross, brings those many many things our lives are often tangled in, idolizing, putting in place of God, to a very simple formula. My old life and its old habits and thinking are tragically and terribly sinful.
But praise be to God, because of the cross at Calvary and Jesus Christ giving His innocent life and taking upon Himself the penalty that I should bear (my sins), God gives us His blessed grace and His righteousness.
Today, especially this week, will you take stock of your life. Will you take up the cross, your cross, and deny your old way of living and count it dead!
Then you can amazingly walk in God’s grace and follow Jesus Christ – a new life, new appetites, a new way of thinking all involving denying yourself!