The Application of the Cross

Sometimes I am wanting to find the application of this word into my life, but I’ve got no aptitude for it.  To that I would say, “God give me a mind for what you think, so I could be effective as your disciple.”  I came across this scripture  the other day taken from Isaiah 50 which says; “The Lord has given Me the tongue of disciples, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word.  He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple.” Often, we look for ways to apply this word in our lives only to find the simple truth is not merely conveyed with great oration or vivid illustration.  The truth however is best understood by what Jesus said in Luke 14, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” While men often go here and there to find great preaching looking for that one great illustration, nothing connects me to Jesus like the cross.  Jesus is affirming the cross as a means of application but more importantly as a means of identity.  When by taking up our cross we deny ourselves, we are saying no our thinking and to our own reasoning and even our own cause.  When we do that, we are identifying with the thinking that had Him at the cross for us in the first place.  Taking up my cross aligns my life with the cause and thinking of Christ.  Presently, most Christians know more about God than they are able to apply for lack of the cross.  All of us have a cross to be sure, but is yours currently out for repairs?  Paul said in Galatians 2:20; “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” Paul saw himself as crucified with Christ because He’d taken up His cross.  There was with Paul a death to this world and its thinking, but also the applied ability to actually live as Christ would because he had nothing else to live for.  Full faith in Jesus had taken over his mind to actually comprehend the height and depth of Christ’s love for him.  That is ultimately what Jesus is saying in Luke 14, namely this:  that as long as you have something else your living for, you won’t carry your cross.  Jesus is saying, ‘nothing can come ahead of me, so get square with me and I will order your thoughts aright and connect your head with your heart and you will live and speak as my disciple.’