Thought for Today: “A Pocket-Sized Cross”

Jesus said that if we want to be His disciples, then we must pick up our crosses daily and follow Him (Luke 9:23)

To pick up a cross and carry it wasn’t and still isn’t easy. Jesus stumbled under its weight, and in the end, He was crucified upon it and died an inglorious death.

Therefore, to pick up a cross goes against what our desires are when we come into the faith of Jesus Christ, because what it means is that we die to self. What we want are the blessings, not the sufferings.

So, what do we do? We take the knife of our rationalizations and whittle the cross down to a size that’s easy to bear and carry. What this means and looks like is that we follow Jesus not as closely as we should and follow the world more closely than we should.

• We read the Bible less and instead read and watch more of the world’s garbage on the Internet.
• We gather less with other believers in church, and spend more time with our favorite characters on T.V.
• We give less to the church but give more to worldly stuff and endeavors.
• And we share less of Jesus but more of our political points of view.

In essence, we have taken the cross we’ve been commanded to bare and whittled it down to pocket size and wear it as a piece of jewelry.