The way of the cross is the only way to go – to die.
Jesus went the way of the cross. He said we are to follow Him. He told us to take up our own cross and follow Him.
What do most people think taking up their cross means? What do you think it means?
- believing in Jesus
- believing you sinned
- believing Jesus died for your sins
- being baptised in His name
- being baptised in the Holy Spirit
- etc
- etc
No. It isn’t these at all.
To take up our cross and follow Christ (as the Holy Spirit leads us – into all TRUTH) is to suffer the loss of our own nature through a process much similar to how Jesus suffered on His way to the cross as a sacrifice for us.
Obviously it is unique to everyone and ordered specifically by Father himself, for our benefit. In fact, for our glory.
The process is one of our dying as a seed in the ground, just as Jesus’ parable depicted He was a seed that would be fruitful by dying as a seed in the ground. As we go through a process of death, our self dies to all the bonds that the natural world has on us by way of our nature, our sinful nature, our human nature. The pure and holy seed which is Christ (a spiritual nature), within us grows through this process and we become less like ourselves (carnal) and more like Him. Thereby growing up into His likeness. Hereby becoming a NEW CREATION as Godlike in a human form, just as Jesus was the FIRST of many brethren.
As I mentioned in the previous post, putting off or dying to our sinful nature though, also includes dying to the ‘good’ of that nature. That’s because abiding in the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which we do very naturally, is carnal and of a double mindedness. It is not Holy.
Too many believers think that it is enough to be Good. It is NOT. We must become HOLY just as He is Holy. And this is not something we can decide to do starting today, as though it were a New Year’s resolution. This is a process of putting our hearts, lives and desires on the altar of sacrifice and the refiner’s fire of heaven coming down to consume it until only ashes are left.
In some extremely difficult situations I have found myself in, I have pleaded to the Father for deliverance from them. I have begged and pleaded in emotional pain and agony that He have mercy on me and change my circumstances. But I have found one way of the Lord in this way of the Cross, was to let me beg, plead, and cry out until I was so utterly spent the only thing left was to put all that it was to me on my own little altar and say “Father, I give it all to you. Do with it whatever you will. Your will, not mine, be done.” At that point He has something to work with.
My carnal reasoning struggles with every possible scenario and solution and outcome to my circumstances until it has exhausted itself so completely it has no further energy, in it’s own life and strength, to keep fighting back.
Like Job, we must learn to not turn away from the Lord here. This is vital. Our faith grows if we can hang on a little longer and not forsake the profession of our faith. God gives and He takes away, blessed be the Lord.
There are not many people willing to go through this. The cross is foolishness to them that are perishing (everyone that doesn’t understand that God has purposed these things that we may become holy as He is holy).
So what is the Way of the Cross?
- it is death to our sinful nature
- it is also death to the ‘good’ of our nature
- it is life to Christ within us
- it is not something we can do ourselves
- it is not a process we can truly understand
- it is for our glory
- it is as John the Baptist said “He must increase, I must decrease.”
- it is life by death and the ONLY way we become Christ like and Holy as He is Holy.
- it is an individual process, the church can’t take you there
Good deeds, giving of ourselves to worthwhile causes, tithing, providing for children in third world countries, not murdering, lying and maintaining flawless church attendance are not the ways in which we ‘get to heaven’.
We are seated with Christ in the heavenlies if and when in the ‘eating of Him as our bread’ He is assimilated into our being as a growing Holy seed.
Religion and religious practices can not live through the way of the cross. The cross will devour any and all man made laws that the Spirit of God may become the true fulfillment of God’s law as it is written on your heart.
What Every Believer Must Know About The Way Of The Cross – Part 1
