The Cross before You

Hey Everyone hope you had a good Easter and got to celebrate the true meaning.  I wanted to talk today about your journey with God and putting the Cross first.  This came to me at church this morning and with a song I was listening to from Chris Tomlin on putting the cross before you and the world behind you.

The song and story is basically if you put the Cross before you and the world behind you, your worries will be limited.  Have you ever thought about doing that in your life or are you doing that?  For me it is so easy to do that for the times around Easter and Christmas but once I get caught up in my daily grind I tend to put the world in front of me and the Cross behind me.  Now I am not forgetting about the Cross or my relationship with Christ but I am putting the needs of this world (work, school, chores, etc.) in front of me.  It is impossible from my side to always put the Cross first because we are sinful.  If we always had Christ first in our lives then we would be close to being sinless.  We would always be living for him and not selfish.

I deal with this on a daily basis.  I face so many different items at work that pull my attention.  Throughout the day my focus goes to these projects and usually my frustrations are close behind.  Now if I took my day and continually put the Cross before me I am sure my frustrations would be diminished.  I have a perfect example of this just this past week when I had to present a tough proposition to a customer.  While I was very nervous and worked up about this meeting, I focused myself on God and my fears calmed.  The meeting in turn went a lot better then I expected and I was able to relax.  I truly believe this was in part due to my focus on the Cross instead of the worldly needs.

I challenge each of you this week to focus on putting the Cross first.  Remember the sacrifices Jesus made for you and the blessing you have of eternal life.  Take whatever step necessary for you to do this.  Maybe you should put a Cross in your car or on the mirror in the morning.  Put a cross on your computer desktop or your phone's screensaver.  Make it a priority to put the Cross before you and the world will be behind you without even knowing it.  These small things turn into a large step in growing your faith and getting closer with your Father.

Mark 8:34-38

34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life[b] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”