CROSS BEARING

And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

—Luke 9:23

954 God Counted Crosses

I counted dollars while God counted crosses.

I counted gains while He counted losses!

I counted my worth by the things gained in store.

But He sized me up by the scars that I bore.

I coveted honors and sought for degrees;

He wept as He counted the hours on my knees.

And I never knew ’til one day at a grave,

How vain are these things that we spend life to save!

—Selected

955 Christ’s Forgotten Mark

It is said that there was once a monk who prayed much that he might have the marks of the Lord upon his hands and feet. A vision was given him in which he was shown a mark on the Lord’s body that the world had forgotten. It was the mark upon the shoulder, and the monk learned that he could only have the marks on the hands and feet as he first had the mark upon the shoulder.

—A. E. Gregory

956 Chained To The Dead

The Romans sometimes compelled a captive to be joined face to face with a dead body, and to bear it about until the horrible effluvia destroyed the life of the living victim. Virgil describes this cruel punishment:

“The living and the dead at his command

Were coupled face to face, and hand to hand;

Till choked with stench, in loathed embraces tied,

The lingering wretches pined away and died.”

957 Cross-Country Cross-Bearing

The Rev. Arthur Blessit, mod minister to hippies on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip, made a cross-country cross-carrying journey. It took him—and four members of his rock group, the Eternal Rush—seven months and 3,500 miles to do it. Along the way, Blessit held evangelistic rallies, urging Christians to meet him at the Washington Monument—but not with empty hands.

“Christians need to come and give something,” he proclaimed. He asked all to bring or send two gifts for the nation’s needy. And those who reached the capital also found a bloodmobile available for a third gift.

“It blows people’s minds to see someone carrying a six-by-ten foot, eighty-pound cross, through town,” says the reverend.

958 Epigram On Cross-Bearing

•     There are no crownwearers in Heaven that were not crossbearers here below.

—Spurgeon

See also: Consecration ; Dedication ; Sacrifice ; Sufferings ; Matt. 10:38; 16:24; Luke 14:27.