Evening, February 23
Go To Morning Reading
“Take up the cross, and follow me.”
Mark 10:21
You have not the making of your own cross, although unbelief is a
master carpenter at cross-making; neither are you permitted to choose
your own cross, although self-will would fain be lord and master;
but your cross is prepared and appointed for you by divine love, and
you are cheerfully to accept it; you are to take up the cross as your
chosen badge and burden, and not to stand cavilling at it. This night
Jesus bids you submit your shoulder to his easy yoke. Do not kick
at it in petulance, or trample on it in vain-glory, or fall under
it in despair, or run away from it in fear, but take it up like a
true follower of Jesus. Jesus was a cross-bearer; he leads the way
in the path of sorrow. Surely you could not desire a better guide!
And if he carried a cross, what nobler burden would you desire? The
Via Crucis is the way of safety; fear not to tread its thorny paths.
Beloved, the cross is not made of feathers, or lined with velvet,
it is heavy and galling to disobedient shoulders; but it is not an
iron cross, though your fears have painted it with iron colours, it
is a wooden cross, and a man can carry it, for the Man of sorrows
tried the load. Take up your cross, and by the power of the Spirit
of God you will soon be so in love with it, that like Moses, you would
not exchange the reproach of Christ for all the treasures of Egypt.
Remember that Jesus carried it, and it will smell sweetly; remember
that it will soon be followed by the crown, and the thought of the
coming weight of glory will greatly lighten the present heaviness
of trouble. The Lord help you to bow your spirit in submission to
the divine will ere you fall asleep this night, that waking with to-morrow’s sun, you may go forth to the day’s cross with the holy and submissive spirit which becomes a follower
of the Crucified.