Whose Cross Are You Carrying?

I recently heard a profound message on Luke 9:23 "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." Now this wasn't just any message. God revealed some huge stuff to me and I just wanted to share it with you. Because maybe, maybe the cross you're trying to carry isn't the one He wants you carrying.

Our Cross

So what is the cross He's set before us? Our purpose. Our portion. And He asks us to take it up DAILY. Not when we feel like it. Not next week or next year. Every. Single. Day.

The pastor gave the analogy of giving your child a plate of food. Your child may not want all of the food but you know, as the parent, he needs that food. All of it. For the child to grow, thrive, and become the man he's supposed to be. And when God gives us our plate, our cross, our portion, we need to accept ALL of it, good or bad, whether we like it or not, to become ALL that He made us to be.

Sometimes all we want is the triple-layer double-chocolate-fudge cake portion and not the canned spinach portion, amiright? I mean who WANTS the bad parts, the hard stuff, the pain and suffering? No one! But God knows exactly the portions we need in order to fulfill the purpose He's given us. And if we refuse to eat the things we don't want to eat, we will never fully become the person God intended us to be.

I think, so often, we're too busy looking at other people's plates (portions) and wishing we could have what's on their plate. We see people who have already put in the work and we want their chocolate cake. We're not looking at all of the nasty things they had to eat to get there. We just want to be at their finish line.

So what is your portion? It's what God's given you to do right this very moment. Good or bad, it's what you have to carry. Whether it's raising babies or letting them go, losing a job or running a successful business, working from home or selling it all to become a missionary, living an active healthy life or fighting cancer; it's your portion. No one else's. And when you decide to accept the portion He's set in front of you and you walk through it, you will be living on purpose. You will be carrying that cross He asked you to carry.

That's our cross. Nothing more, nothing less.

Not Our Cross

The cross that Jesus bore should have been ours. It WAS ours. It may have been 300 lbs but it was marinated in our sin. The sin of the entire world; sins of the past, sins of the present, and sins of the future.

The pastor reminded us of Simon, who carried the cross for a little while. Most of us might think, that poor guy. Just an innocent bystander, having to carry JESUS' cross. But, in reality, it was HIS OWN cross. It was MY cross. It was YOUR cross. And when the time came, Jesus took the cross and essentially said, "I got it from here."

He had it from there. Done. Finished. Not for us to go back to. Not for us to try and carry again. If we keep going back to our old cross--our old lives, our gossiping, cheating, drinking, drugs, lying, and scheming cross...the one Jesus was tortured for--we can't carry the cross He's set out in front of us. If we feel like we're not good enough. If we let little mistakes, or big ones, sins from years ago, or sins from yesterday stand in our way of taking up the cross that Jesus has given us, then we're not accepting the grace of the cross He carried.

We have to stop trying to settle what's already been settled. We were never meant to carry the cross of sin, but instead, the cross of purpose. We can't carry both at the same time. {Tweet That}

So, tell me: whose cross are you trying to carry? And what is the cross should you be carrying?