Have You Felt Like Giving Up Lately?Muestra

You Can’t Carry Your Cross Alone

Jesus took up his cross and was led by his tormentors like a lamb to be slain. But he could not carry it for long. The truth is Jesus was too weak and frail to carry his cross. It was laid on another’s shoulders. 

Personally, it gives me great hope to know Jesus could not take up his cross. It encourages me to know I am not the only one burdened down to the ground at times, unable to go on in my own strength. If we are going to identify with his crucifixion, we must also identify with the steps that led to the cross. We must face, once and for all, the truth that no human being can carry his or her own cross. 

Why, then, would he ask us to shoulder crosses he knows will soon crush us to the ground? He knows we can’t carry them all the way in our own strength. He knows all about the agony, the helplessness and the burden that a cross creates. 

God knows also that not one of his children can carry the cross he takes up when following Christ. We so much want to be good disciples; we so much want to deny ourselves and take the cross upon ourselves. We seem to forget that same cross will one day bring us to the end of our human strength and endurance. Would Jesus purposely ask us to take up crosses that he knows will sap all our human energies and leave us lying helpless to the point of giving up? Absolutely! Jesus forewarns us, “Without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). So he asks us to take up our crosses and struggle on with them until we learn that lesson. Not until our crosses push us down into the dust do we learn the lesson that it is not by our might nor power nor strength, but it is by his power. 

What is your cross? It is any burden or pressure that threatens to break you down. Since Jesus did not describe the details of the cross we are to take up, I suggest it is anything that will hasten a crisis in our spiritual lives. 

Dear friend, don’t think of your trial as judgment from God. Don’t go about condemning yourself as though you have brought down upon yourself some dreaded penalty for failure. Stop thinking, “God is making me pay for my sin.” Why can’t you see that what you are going through is a result of his love? Are you being chastened? Do you feel as if you are being dragged down? Are you in pain? Are you suffering? Good! That is evidence of his love toward you. Submit. Take up your cross. Be prepared to go down even more. Get ready to reach your crisis. Get ready to reach the end of yourself. Be prepared to give up. Be prepared to hit bottom! 

He laid his cross down; why won’t you? For him, Simon appeared. For us, the Savior appears.