Prepare a large cross, making it of pasteboard or of wood; it should be as large as a child could well carry. Paint one half of it black,\u2014or stone color, if you can imitate the stone exactly,\u2014and the other side gilt. Place the cross before the children in such a position that they can see only the black side.<\/p>\n
Begin with telling them what Christ said about bearing our crosses. Show how he himself had to carry his cross on the way to Calvary, and set before the children a picture of that sad scene. Tell them of the heavier cross that Christ had to bear,\u2014the weight of all the world\u2019s sins and sorrows.<\/p>\n
We also have crosses to bear. Let this cross represent them. Let us put names to this cross. What shall it stand for? What are some of the things that you young Christians have to bear for Christ? People\u2019s laughing at you for trying to follow Christ? Yes, that is one cross, certainly. See; I have printed \u201claugh\u201d on this card, and I will fasten it to the cross. And what are other crosses we must carry? Sickness? failure? disappointment? poverty? lameness? Here are cards with those names written upon them.<\/p>\n
By this time the cross will be covered on its black side. You will have spoken of it all through as a heavy<\/i> cross, a stone<\/i> cross or iron<\/i> cross. Now you call upon the children to pick out the strongest boy in their number to come and bear the cross. He comes forward and easily lifts it and carries it on his shoulder. You have him turn the golden side toward the children.<\/p>\n
Ah, crosses are never heavy when you take them up in Christ\u2019s strength and carry them bravely. They are never black, then, but they shine like gold. Everything about the cross is changed, when you carry it in Christ\u2019s strength. The laughter is changed; you get strength out of it. We will throw away the label, \u201claugh,\u201d and we will pin upon the black side this bright, golden label, marked \u201cstrength.\u201d What is one good thing that will come out of our sickness<\/i>, if it is borne with Christ\u2019s strength? Patience? Yes; let us throw away \u201csickness,\u201d and fasten in its place this golden label, \u201cpatience.\u201d So proceed with the others, putting in the place of each some good thing that may come out of it, such as \u201ccourage\u201d from \u201cfailure,\u201d \u201cpeace\u201d from \u201cdisappointment,\u201d \u201csoul wealth\u201d from \u201cpoverty,\u201d \u201csoul swiftness\u201d from \u201clameness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Close with the thought that it is Christ that makes all these changes in our crosses, and get the children to say together, \u201cI can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prepare a large cross, making it of pasteboard or of wood; it should be as large as a child could well carry. Paint one half of it black,\u2014or stone color, if you can imitate the stone exactly,\u2014and the other side gilt. Place the cross before the children in such a position that they can see … Continue reading “THE CHANGED CROSS\u2014AN ILLUSTRATION OF TROUBLE AND HOW
\nTO TRANSFORM IT TO JOY”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}