Category: Faith

Taking Up Our Crosses and Embracing Jesus

If my reputation is good, if I fit in with people wherever I go, am I really following Jesus?

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depositphoto Image ID: 2846879 Copyright: rghenry
depositphoto Image ID: 2846879 Copyright: rghenry

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”[i]

What does it mean to take up our crosses and follow Jesus? What does it mean to lose our lives for Christ’s sake?

In the context of this passage, it means that we should embrace Jesus and His words, and not be ashamed of them. If we read the first two verses in the context of the third verse, taking up our crosses daily means daily embracing Jesus and His words and not being ashamed of doing that.

Wide is the road that leads away from Jesus. Narrow is the gate through which we must go to be saved. Following Jesus has never been the popular way. It costs, above all things, the thing that we seek most. It costs our pride, our reputation in the world. It costs our ability to fit in with the world. It costs our self-esteem and self-promotion.

Am I really following Jesus? If my reputation is good, if I fit in with people wherever I go, am I really following Jesus?

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What is Hidden Will Be Made Known

What will the movie of my life be like? Will I be proud? Or ashamed? Will my good deeds outweigh the bad?

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A strange suspicious confident hacker standing with a hoodie and leather jacket in front of sepia brown urban concrete wall concept
depositphoto Copyright: ra2studio

For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light. (Luke 8:17)

Shakespeare was right. We strut and fret our hour upon the stage.[1] But who are we performing for? Our friends and family? Neighbors? The public? Do we perform for ourselves alone?

We have but an hour. Rather, it is more like a minute, a second… a millisecond in the scope of time, on this stage of space/time in the very small act we call human history. According to Shakespeare, our lives are “an idiot’s tale, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.

That may be so if there is no God and no life beyond this brief, strutting hour. It would all be meaningless, an idiot’s tale indeed, if this universe is not the work of a Creator and we are not His image bearers.

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It is Well with My Soul: The Story

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Photo by Steve Holland
Photo by Steve Holland

This story has inspired many over the decades. It is one of most read blog posts on this site. Sometimes songs we know have so much more meaning and power when we know the story behind the song. The song, It is Well with My Soul, is known by most people who have attended protestant church. L…

Source: It is Well with My Soul: The Story

Conflating God with People

We can’t judge God by the conduct of the people

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ed-sheeran-concert

I have an old friend who is “disgusted” that many Christians supported Donald Trump and were a significant factor in Trump winning the election. She, like many women (and men), cannot get past the infamous words that Trump spoke how about a woman reporter. I won’t repeat them here. They are too vulgar for polite company.

My friend has been so turned off of Christians and “the” Church by the fact that many Christians voted for Trump and were a factor in electing him, that she no longer goes to church at all after decades of being a church-goer.

I don’t want to get into politics here. That isn’t the issue I’m focused on.

I have family and friends who say that they can’t believe in God, or can’t believe in the Christian God, because Christians are hypocrites. This is what leads me to write this piece.

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Music that Resonates

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until-i-die-ill-sing-these-songs-2

The following songs resonate most with the longing in me that CS Lewis aptly described:

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.” (Mere Christianity)

“Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object.

….

“Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth.” (Weight of Glory)