Sometimes I have thought that the verse about picking up your cross and following Christ was really confusing. Isn’t it in Christ that we find freedom? So what’s this business about bearing a cross? That doesn’t seem like freedom.
Matthew 16:24 says, “Then Jesus told the disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.'”
If true freedom in Christ is not carrying the burden of our sin and brokenness with us, what does it truly me to pick up our cross and follow Jesus?
It has hit me recently that the burden we are bearing when we pick up our cross and follow Jesus is not the burden of our past and brokenness. It is the weight of glory that comes from sanctification. That may sound kind of funny. But take a moment and think about it.
Sanctification. Change. Growth. = Burden. Cross. Denying of Self.
These are all hard things in the moment. I have never been a big fan of change (as I think most people are). But over time I have learned that it is through these unexpected or hard changes that we grow the most.
Recently, I have been wrestling with the question of, “How do I balance having confidence in my identity as a daughter of the Most High and understanding that I am a broken person who still deals with temptation and sin?”
Well, I have figured it out. It is not about balance. Our identity as children of God does not change, it is constant through and through. It is the process of sanctification that may seem hard and load bearing. But that is our cross.
Growing up when I disobeyed my parents, they didn’t come to me and say, “Kristin, I don’t think this whole being our daughter thing is going to work out.” So when we disobey our parents does that make their kids any less their kids. Right? So why when it comes to God do we try to separate these two things.
When I asked the Lord to be my personal Lord and Savior I stepped under a banner of heir and kinship with Christ. So even in my missteps and brokenness I am still a daughter of the Most High God.
When you think about these two things together you can see that the weight of the cross is worth it because the burden I am bearing is for my good and God’s glory.
When we think of our cross in comparison to the Lords it definitely puts my struggles and trials into perspective. Christ bore the FULL burden of all of the past and future sins in one moment. So my minor load may seem HUGE in the moment, but take a birds eye view and we can see that the struggles we have are light and momentary.
“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” – 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
So with joy I will bear the burden of my cross because it isn’t about the now it is about the forever.
