Grace Under Pressure

I'm listening to today's service again. It was great. I knew it would be.

Obedient up to and including death.

I watched a movie last night on the killings in Rwanda. This was on HBO and focused on the brother of the man on the radio, spewing all of the hate that continued to encite the violence against the Tutsi. Mans inhumanity to man. Reduce our fellowman to an object, cockroaches, and we can then just exterminate, as if they are pestilence.

...love one another deeply, from the heart... 1 Peter 1:22

We must have a mind for the things of God. If you want to follow me you have to do the same. We must deny self and pick up our cross. Less of me and more of Christ.

The cross is necessary for discipleship. The cross is nonnegotiable. Especially for followers of Jesus Christ. Before you can put on the crown you have to pick up the cross. The cross is a symbol of suffering. We live in a time when we line up in blessing lines and we seek comfort and blessings for our lives, we have a difficult time with the hanging and suffering Jesus.

We rather see him walk on water and heal the blind and the deaf. But those things didn't save me, it was the blood that saved me. We have a hard time with bloody Jesus.

If we are to follow Him we must pick up the cross. We have a difficult time with the cross. The cross interrupts my wantings and desires. It challenges me. It asks me if I have enough love to lay down my life. To actually die for the cross. Love in my heart and in my spirit. Do I have enough love to suffer? Suffering and the willingness to suffer is not attractive. Understand it is absolutely necessary for present day discipleship that we have to lay down the palm branch and pick up the cross.

Ghandi said that We have to understand that to believe that redeemptive suffering is necessary. Moral power to voluntary suffering for power. Blessed are those who are persecuted for they shall see the things of God. King said we will meet you physical force with spiritual force. King said do to us what you will and we will still love you. Soon we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer.

By wearing you down we will win our freedom. Our capacity to suffer and our capacity to freedom thinking we will win you over. The willingness to suffer.We serve a radical Jesus. We cannot be formed by Jesus and run from the cross. We have to embrace the cross and the willingness to carry it. It's a hard gospel. As christians we have abandoned the cross.You can't get to resurrection without going through the cross. You have to pick up the cross.

Enough for now, I have to finish listening to the service.