Christian Living

Bearing in Order to Follow

by Terry Barlow
08/17/18
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Jesus instructs us to take up our crosses and to follow Him. (Matthew 16, v24). Note that he doesn't instruct us only to take up our crosses, but he goes on to say that we are to follow Him.  He doesn't want us dwelling on the crosses, He wants us bearing them willingly but yet going on and following Him so that our eyes are upon Him NOT the crosses.

   In a miniaturized sense even His cross experience is reproduced in our lives, not for the purpose of atonement, Jesus did that once and for all and for all time and eternity, but rather for the purpose of the formation of His character in us.  (which is one definition of the word "glory").  "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of His body, that is, the church."  (Colossians 1, v.24)  And if His cross experience is played out in our lives it may mean that there will be a time or times when it seems and feels like God has forsaken us, because that is what Jesus felt and that is what it was like for Him.  Maybe that is part of what it means to belong to the fellowship of His sufferings, to fellowship with Him even in that unthinkable pain and unspeakable sorrow of being separated from the Father with Whom he had always been, and in Whose bosom he had always rested.

The greatest story ever told gets retold through the lives of the faithful followers of Jesus Christ in each successive generation. (It has been well said that "success without succession is failure.")