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06.
Carrying a cross
Reading: 2 Cor 12:9, Eph 4:20-21, Rev 5:6
Those who want to learn Christ do so by carrying a cross. A man in search for a life lived in service and in the fear of the Lord has to take on a cross. Life is found by the man who has made himself ready for the loosing of life and then undergoing the loss under the hand of the Lord. Anyone who dares to allow the cross to be an operative factor in his life will be made able to translate, to convey life to other men. Along this road to life the assimilation and accumulation of pleasing and soothing thoughts and a constructing of doctrinal statements is of meager value. This road is meandering into eternity through one testing and molding experience after the other, each one with its own content and meaning.
Those who want to learn Christ will inevitably find the ways of the Lord to be summarized in the conundrum of the cross. If God, in all his overwhelming glory, could be summed up from a human standpoint, the result would at every point crystallize within the realm of the cross. To come alongside him in his omnipotence and wisdom equals being confronted by the reality of perfect servanthood in a tender spirit of sacrifice. God is there, always and ever as a servant, always and ever to provide life through sacrifice, always and ever at work at the core of his creation in the wisdom of the Lamb. Grace, life and salvation reaches its fullness in this weakness. The cross is the wisdom of God, the cross of Christ is the power of God unto salvation.
If we were able to look into Heaven as John saw, we would immediately recognize the Lamb. One would immediately be made able to perceive as Heaven does – a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain. The intrinsic nature of the glory, this eternal shekinah light, rests over and in all there is in Heaven with its absolute origin and center in the sacrificial disposition of God. The mind of Christ, this mind, this mindset which constitutes godliness is brought to fullness and practical interpretation through a daily taking on of the cross. A handling of the regular everyday life with this perspective brings Heaven to Earth. The wisdom of the Lamb bends away from the wisdom of the world, confronts it and overcomes it.
We do not need more power or enhanced capability but we need a deeper death. God’s cause reaches its fullness and perfection in our weakness. God’s way is a narrow path. The straightest passage towards the goal of the Lord is a passage meaning constriction. Out in open space, amidst pressure and restriction, words are turned into life – but only there. One who forgets, even rejects the taking up of the cross delivers a false testimony – his life will display a lack of authenticity. Learning Christ holds a partaking of Christ for the sake of being made able to share what is obtained in that fellowship, sharing the life found at His feet. The cross demonstrates the mind of God, it presents the nature of God. Defending oneself against a daily carrying of the cross is to defend self against God. A taking up of the cross is to take part of the mind and the ways of Christ, taking part of life itself, a formation for the sake of ministering the life of Christ.
Our prayer-life, our inner life ought to be imbued with a “Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth” to open up for the glory of God to begin shining here as it does in Heaven.
Our prayer-life, our inner life ought to embrace the cross as the way to life to counteract the moral and spiritual irresponsibility in our societies and cities.
Our prayer-life, our life lived in fellowship ought to take hold of the cross for the sake of mobilizing a people standing together in integrity amidst a common, well-established dodging of critical issues.
Our prayer-life, our inner life ought to aim at installing the reality of the cross of Christ to recover a testimony concerning the true values of life.
The Lord requires discipleship: “The one losing his life on account of Me shall find it – he shall find real life.”
Lars Widerberg