Welcome to February! It is still cold but closer now to spring. I guess you can tell that I am not a big fan of winter. Anytime you have to cover yourself with layers of clothes and coats just to stay warm, well let’s just say putting on and off all those layers is too much work for me just to be comfortable.
Speaking of being comfortable, have you ever noticed how many gadgets and things we have created to do just that? We have seat warmers in our cars, God forbid our bottom gets cold. We have remote controls to turn our t.v.s on and off as well as change the channels because that 3-foot walk to the t.v. was just too long. The newer ones are even voice activated so we can rest our index fingers, lest they became callused from surfing the t.v. channels. The list goes on and on. I believe there are people who are paid to sit around and come up with new inventions to make life easier in every way for us. Another example is that we don’t even have to come to church anymore, we can zoom it while still sitting in bed with our pj’s on. Yet, I still can hear the words of Jesus in Matthew 16:24 “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” In other words, there is no phoning it in when following Jesus. There is no short cut or remote for carrying our cross and we cannot explain away what the Lord means when He says to deny oneself. Not to deny yourself daily and not to pick up your cross daily is not to follow him. Our cross is what keeps us going in the right direction. I am reminded of the little boy who got lost and was picked up by the police. When they asked him his address, he replied that he didn’t know, but he remembered he lived by the church they went to and if they could find the church and he could stand under the cross on the church he would know how to get home. So it is with us. Stay focused on Jesus and don’t leave home without your cross for in this life we have many distractions but our cross will keep us going the right direction. Just like a compass, it will show us where our true north is and that will be Jesus. Carrying our cross will not always be comfortable or easy, but know that we won’t be carrying it by ourselves for He also said that, “He will never leave us nor forsake us.”
Following Jesus,
Pastor Rick