"My Cross"

 "And He said to them all, 'If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.'" Luke 9:23

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Looking back over my life and all the seasons I have walked through with the Lord, I would have to say that I was in one of the most difficult, challenging ones I ever faced when I wrote a song called, "My Cross."

I distinctly remember the day I wrote it and can see the scene so clearly in my mind. Zach was little, running around playing between the pews, as I vacuumed the floor of the church we attended.

Rewind to a few months before. We were at the end of an annual church camp meeting, and instead of canceling the Sunday night service following the last Sunday morning of the meeting as was their normal custom, a visiting minister had expressed a desire to hold a teaching service that Sunday evening. As I sat there listening to him pour out the burden on his heart, my soul was deeply stirred. His subject matter revolved around spiritual gifts. 

The seed fell on good ground (Mark 4:8), as God had already been dealing with me, breaking up the fallow ground (Hosea 10:12), softening my heart to the idea of what He was getting ready to call me to do. For quite some time, He had been preparing the soil in my soul for that very Sunday night message. Even though the discourse was more of a teaching than preaching that elicited an altar call, by the time that minister returned to his seat, I nearly flew to the altar at the front of that church. I wanted one of those spiritual gifts. My soul longed to be in the service of the One who bled and died for me, and I was willing to do whatever He asked to satisfy that longing. I had been serving Jesus for many years, but the call to deeper dedication was real.

As I knelt at that altar, I remember saying something like. "Lord, I consecrate myself to you. I will do anything and everything you ask me to." I meant every word. God knew.

When we make that level and intensity of consecration, God will not waste it. He will take a willing, albeit marred, vessel and fill it to capacity, but not without breaking it first and remolding it into what He needs it to be. 

"Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it." Jeremiah 18:3,4

The process of being "made again" on the Potter's wheel is quite a painful one and requires the measure of pliability as lies within a lump of clay. Becoming like clay in the Potter's hand necessitates total, complete surrender. Self has to die, and that requires a cross.

The original Greek word for "cross" in Luke 9:23 is stauros. It literally means—
"the crosspiece of a Roman cross; the cross-beam placed at the top of the vertical member to form a capital "T." "This transverse beam was the one carried by the criminal" (Souter)." Source

I find it interesting that Jesus was talking to His disciples about taking up their cross daily in order to follow Him long before He physically hung on an old, rugged cross. Jesus' whole life was about carrying a cross. Leaving the splendor of heaven to come down and not only die for our sins but live out a 33-year span of time in a body of flesh that suffered, cried, grieved, ached, and endured temptation required unsurpassed sacrifice, and the daily taking up and bearing of a cross.

Anyone who has lived a Christian life for any length of time can attest to the fact that following Jesus continually demands things of us that cut across the grain of what our flesh wants to do. Endeavoring to walk in His footsteps will demand a daily relinquishing and putting to death of one's own preferences and stubborn will. As was the case each time He spoke a word, there's a good reason He listed self-denial as a prerequisite to "taking up our cross."

The thing God called me to do shortly after my trip to the altar that Sunday evening turned into a several-year-long ministry that purged me in ways I could never have imagined, as time after time I was broken and stumbled under the weight of my cross. 

As I stood there vacuuming that day, dog-tired and bone-weary, God poured the words and music to this song over me like a soothing balm. I hope it ministers to you in the same way as you listen.

Praise God forevermore for the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross! And how I thank Him for being willing to take up His daily cross as He lived out life as one of us. His stellar, sinless example and ultimate triumph prove that we can make it, too.

Whatever the weight and composition of your cross, I pray you sense His presence with you today.