As we read through the Gospel accounts, the Spirit of God brings to our minds a far more beautiful and wonderful picture, perhaps, of Jesus’ character and life. We see His compassion, His moral beauty that attracted people everywhere He went. We see the serenity of His spirit, how He moves through scenes of anger and unrest with calm and quiet. We see His disciplined will and His obvious joy in living. That is what we want.
How do we get it? Paul says that it is found in our consent to “endure the unendurable, which spills into joy.” It’s a reference to sharing in the suffering of Jesus. The cross is a symbol of something very real in our experience.
What was Jesus like on the cross? He was not powerful and impressive and significant; He was not being applauded by the multitudes that listened to His every word. No. The cross was a place of physical weakness, of rejection by the proud and arrogant world around Him. It was a place of obscurity, a place where He was willing to lose everything He had built and to trust God to bring it back and make it significant.
Have you been in a circumstance recently, where no matter what you do, you can’t seem to get any glory or credit for yourself? That is exactly where God wants you, because out of those times of inordinate pressure, times of hurt and despair and heartache and a sense of being wasted and not used, God is working His will. Others, perhaps, are being given life because of the death you are going through.
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