February 25, 2007

Taking Up the Cross

An excerpt from my favorite devotional book from this past week...

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross and follow me. Mark 8:34
This was the imagery that Jesus chose to illustrate the meaning of self-denial. We need to rescue this vocabulary from being debased. We should not suppose that self-denial is giving up luxuries during Lent or that "my cross" is some personal or painful trial. We are always in danger of trivializing Christian discipleship, as if it were no more than adding a thin veneer of piety to an otherwise secular life. Then prick the veneer and there is the same old pagan underneath. No, becoming and being a Christian involves a change so radical that no imagery can do it justice except death and resurrection-dying to the old life of self-centeredness and rising to a new life of holiness and love. (From Through the Bible, Through the Year By John Stott)

In a similiar vein, I've been contemplating this statement by my good friend Philip Brown, "...the Bible teaches and the pursuit of God-loving holiness necessarily produces a life moving in the opposite direction of most of modern culture."

2 comments:

JenLo said...

My SS class is going through a sermon series by James McDonald (there's a book by the same title) called "Downpour" and what it means to have personal revival. The focus is on God's holiness and he says some really pointed things about modern-day faith and now we cheapen God's grace by diminishing God's holiness. It's really thought provoking as well.

tim said...

enjoying your posts.
we are in revival with Rev. Walker from "your town," N.C. this week..