Taking up your cross
Skjulte Skatter, published in February 1970
Click to listen to the message.
Taking up your cross and bearing your cross is assisting in your own crucifixion. My cross is everything and everyone that crosses my will, my human will, the will of my flesh.
I am not worthy of Christ if I do not take up my cross! This is the state of many believers. Paul says that they walk as enemies of the cross of Christ, that is, the cross they should be taking up and to which their self-will should be nailed.
In Galatians 5:24 we find this extremely serious truth: “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Therefore those who have not done this and continue that way do not belong to Him! They are not His disciples!
The most glorious thing of all is that Jesus was willing to be crucified; He even assisted with His crucifixion! The next most glorious thing is when a person is willing to be crucified with Him by faith, being obedient to the faith and daily walking as a true friend of the crosses to which his self-will is to be nailed.
This was the only thing the glorious apostle Paul desired to glory in, and the greatest thing he knew! His life and teaching are clear evidence of this!
It was not just that he was excited about this perfect theory! Not at all! He lived it fully, exhorting us to follow him! Let us do this without reservation, my beloved friends!
Listen to what he says: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live …” Galatians 2:20. “But God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Galatians 6:14.
To him, this was the greatest thing of all, the most glorious thing of all, the most effective thing of all, and the secret to the greatest happiness a person can achieve here, during his time of sojourn!
“Nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” Luke 22:42. This is and remains the principal thing all the days of our lives; it is even the very essence of it! Actually, there is nothing else besides this that matters. “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Luke 11:2. In heaven everything is done precisely and as quick as lightning!
It is obvious that we must attain this: forsake and crucify our own will as quick as lightning, or else God’s will cannot be done on earth as it is done in heaven!
However, who has such a high goal and such faith???
Even if we do not possess it, let us wake up in earnest so we can have this goal and an active faith in God’s exceedingly powerful assistance in realizing it! Let it be so!
Your, brother, deeply grieving over all spiritual sleep—
Elias Aslaksen
