Lord, I will not make a fetish about bearing my cross. The purpose of the cross is to release me from myself in order to become useful to the world. But if I am constantly occupied with my cross, I am of no use to myself or anyone else. Oswald Chambers once said, “Self-sacrifice may be a disease.” I cannot afford to make my cross an object of adoration; I must make it an instrument of crucifixion. My cross is anything that competes with the claims of Christ on me. My cross becomes my cross only when I am confronted with an alternative, when Christ says, “Leave all that would compete with Me, and follow Me.”
I cannot manufacture my cross, for that is the worst kind of hypocrisy. It is either there or not. Simply denying myself a tiny pleasure. then being proud about it, is certainly not the cross Jesus Christ was talking about.
The cross is continual. I cannot die to self once and for all. I must die daily” as Paul did (1 Corinthians 15:31). Today the point of crucifixion may be one thing, tomorrow something else. As long as I live, and as long as my flesh craves preeminence, I will be confronted by the continual alternative: my will or Christ’s. Thus I am never free from the pain of being scarred by my cross. Now I see why Paul said, “I fill up … what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of … the church” (Colossians 1:24, NIV). The pain of my cross is Christ’s pain that He endured for others; only as I suffer the pain of dying to self can I live (as Christ did) for others. That is the “glory” life Paul exultantly proclaimed: “God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6:14, NSRB).
“Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Hence, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Hebrews 13:12–13).
Daily with the King 