Carrying Your Cross

This morning as I was filling our baptistery I started thinking about Galatians 2:20:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

This passage has been with me for a long time now. I want to say that the first time I read it was on an encouragement note from some kid at the Youth Camp I went to in Jr. High (like just after the Civil War). Anyhow... the question came to me, "What does this look like?" A few words came to mind, "dangerous", "painful", "dead", then I thought longer, "resurrected", "renewed"... I began to think about how it is much easier to be religious than to be crucified.

If you want to go to church, the world will think little of it; just don't get weird.

Ah that's the rub isn't it? This is where the trouble starts. A crucified life means more than we can say here, but some of what it looks like is this: forgiving a wrong suffered, loving your enemies, praying for those who persecute you, giving a cup of cold water to a stranger in Jesus' name, praying before a major purchase (and even minor ones) to be sure you are being a wise steward and that you don't tie up your money in such a way that hinders you from serving the Lord, forgetting about 'your future' and joining a missionary society instead of going to college so you can make a lot of money and make yourself comfortable, crumpling your dreams up into a ball and making a three point buzzer shot across your office to the waste basket, exchanging said dreams for God's plan for your life; the life lived from the borrowed breath of your Creator (Gen 2:7), taking out the trash yourself instead of complaining that someone else didn't do it, etc. etc.

I read yesterday about a church where someone won $10,000 in a community drawing. What would you do with 10k? I can think of all sorts of things. You know what they did? They gave it to their church's annual Christmas offering for missionaries (if you speak Baptist it was for Lottie Moon).

That is crucified. Ouch.

But the end result is glorious.