What the cross is not - by Elizabeth Reynolds

I was reading a devotion recently about what the cross (and the path of the cross) means, but more importantly what it is not.

It’s not a habit of commiserating over life’s tough stuff while saying “It’s my cross that I bear.”

It’s not a journey of religious self-denial, as though God calls for a prudish, self-styled piety.

It’s not a stubborn pathway that advertises suffering and defeat as the ultimate expression of true holiness.

What it is is a pathway of surrender, of refusal to be dominated by selfishness or carnality – a pathway of triumph!

This just blessed me because the statements mentioned above about what the pathway of the cross is not, have somehow become the very stereotypical view of Christians and Christianity. And sometimes when a stereotype becomes strong enough or widely enough known as truth, it can sometimes start becoming the truth of people’s lives. This is dangerous and quite depressing to think about – and so when we get the opportunity to be reminded that our lives as Christians is about triumph, about being conquerors, and about being raised to life with Christ – it is enormously valuable and uplifting and, well… triumphant!

Elizabeth Reynolds