Spurgeon: February PM
* 02/23/PM
"Take up the cross, and follow Me."
--Mark 10:21
You have not the making of your own cross, although unbelief
is a master carpenter at cross-making; neither are you permitted
to choose your own cross, although self-will would fain be lord
and master; but your cross is prepared and appointed for you by
divine love, and you are cheerfully to accept it; you are to
take up the cross as your chosen badge and burden, and not to
stand cavilling at it. This night Jesus bids you submit your
shoulder to His easy yoke. Do not kick at it in petulance, or
trample on it in vain-glory, or fall under it in despair, or run
away from it in fear, but take it up like a true follower of
Jesus. Jesus was a cross-bearer; He leads the way in the path of
sorrow. Surely you could not desire a better guide! And if He
carried a cross, what nobler burden would you desire? The Via
Crucis is the way of safety; fear not to tread its thorny
paths.
Beloved, the cross is not made of feathers, or lined with
velvet, it is heavy and galling to disobedient shoulders; but it
is not an iron cross, though your fears have painted it with
iron colours, it is a wooden cross, and a man can carry it, for
the Man of sorrows tried the load. Take up your cross, and by
the power of the Spirit of God you will soon be so in love with
it, that like Moses, you would not exchange the reproach of
Christ for all the treasures of Egypt. Remember that Jesus
carried it, and it will smell sweetly; remember that it will
soon be followed by the crown, and the thought of the coming
weight of glory will greatly lighten the present heaviness of
trouble. The Lord help you to bow your spirit in submission to
the divine will ere you fall asleep this night, that waking with
to-morrow's sun, you may go forth to the day's cross with the
holy and submissive spirit which becomes a follower of the
Crucified.