Take Up Your Cross, Follow Him And Don't Worry About Tomorrow

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Matthew 6:34

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

Luke 9:23

Take Up Your Cross And Don't Worry About Tomorrow

Our lives are unique and God has given us unique burdens to bear. All of these providential acts from our benevolent Father are intended for our good to conform us into the image of his Son. Our burdens are given to us that as image bearers we manifest that image of suffering which was expressed in Christ. The unique roles that Christ lives out as Prophet, Priest, and King are roles that mankind inescapably participates in either inaccurately or accurately. These roles are foundational elements of our humanity which are seen in everything we do. Inaccurate participation of these roles is seen in all forms of false religion, ideologies, and philosophies. Accurate participation is seen only by living as Christ lived.

Because Christ is the High Priest we are priests and as priests we must live and die like our High Priest. To neglect attention to this particular role brings upon the Christian a real and certain impediment to their Spiritual health. When we do not recognize ourselves as active participants in the priesthood of all believers we suffer seemingly needless and meaningless events in our lives which are intended to be sufferings for the Kingdom. We suffer, then, directly from the hand of God or indirectly through the hands of man. In either suffering we offer our bodies like whole burnt offerings which ascend up to heaven as a pleasing aroma to our Father.

Your Sufferings Have Purpose

Learning to bear our burdens, then, brings peace to us and restoration to the world. In the circumference of your influence you must begin to search for what you can redeem remembering that all things are being placed in submission to Christ. This means we must have eyes to identify the various sufferings and degradations where we ourselves have the opportunity and obligation to redeem. In your providential arrangements not one person has the same direct and indirect influence in the redemption of all things through Christ as you do. Your duty as a priest in this world is unique in this way. There is no room for apathy. So too there is no room for pride. When any one of us has ended our priesthood in this body and passed into glory the world will continue on having sunrise and sunset.

God has sovereignly placed you where you are and providentially has orchestrated events in which you and you alone are first able to see and able to procure the victory of Christ in that chaos. The intercession and subsequent sacrifice you live out fills up in you what is lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions. That is, that as we put on Christ's joy in this world to give it joy so too we put on his sufferings to relieve it of suffering. Christ has given us the privilege in sharing in his redemptive work as secondary agents. Like Christ we bring life out of suffering, order out of chaos.

Bringing Light Into Darkness

As Christ is the Light which casts away darkness we too are to be light that expels darkness with the effulgence we possess through him. Suffering is the chosen means through which God redeems the world. As in the beginning when God let there be light into the darkness, exposing darkness to the light fills what is void with life and order. Whether the victory you participate within is a complete victory or a necessary step in the process of submitting all things under Christ's authority has no bearing on the truth that it is your responsibility in that moment to act and to not neglect the situation or to demean the redemption God has placed in your path to participate within. It is not so important whether your actions are regarded by men or even if God increases your burden to bear but that you take responsibility where he has placed you and you perform your service as his priest here on Earth at your own sovereignly sanctioned Bethel.

Unbearable Responsibilities?

Because you are a priest or priestess you must order your life according to the pattern of Christ and let no other gods influence or detract from your way of living in him. This will mean that as you begin to align yourself with Christ's life, death and resurrection you will, when you ask sincerely, expose those unnecessary burdens in your life that only Pharisees and false gods place upon their followers which you have either willingly or ignorantly accepted to practice in your life. The Pharisees were not a religious group that Christ commended for their observance of the law given to Moses but were continually confronted because they set aside God's standards to uphold their traditions.

One such tradition they upheld and Christ rebuked in them was the Corban rule which allowed their money or goods intended for their parents to instead go to the Temple. Christ rebuked this teaching as setting aside the law that commands to honor your father and mother and warned that this offense is worthy of capital punishment. As Paul teaches on this very matter he who does not provide for his own household is worse than an unbeliever. Such types of outwardly religious acts are the kind that are added burdens beyond the easy burden of Christ for his people. It is not enough to have zeal. We must also have knowledge. If your service to the Kingdom causes neglect to such an elementary doctrine as the fifth commandment your service is incongruent with the teachings and design of God. These added burdens cause their participants to frustrate their efforts to honor God when they have begun to practice them. In seeking to apply the Corban rule but also trying to honor their parents such a person will exhaust themselves due to going beyond God's commandments.

Two other examples of unnecessary burdens would be refusal to marry and false asceticism. Depriving yourself from the enjoyment and pleasure of intimate acts between husband and wife  is a great way to cause unnecessary temptation and the beginnings of resentment. This deprivation often is under the pretense of serving the Kingdom all the while having the desire for a mate. Such suffering which is often self inflicted is not the kind of suffering that one should perpetually bear. Find a wife. Accept a husband. Enjoy the rest each other provides.

With asceticism there is a common burden placed upon believers to not rest as God rested. Enjoying a beer, a glass of wine, your favorite dessert, a good book or show can all be real blessings and benefit your soul as you follow the pattern of God's creational and redemptive order in the pattern of Christ, in whom we find our rest. On the command of the Apostle you must not submit to teachings that demand you abstain from certain foods under any pretense of godliness. So too you must avoid sinning against your individual conscience. Let rest not be the entirety of your day. Kings know when to feast. A king who feasts and drinks his wine at the improper time clouds his ability to make just decisions. A good king knows when to feast and enjoy his wine. If you don't know when to rest or don't have any conceptualized framework of why rest is Biblical and a necessary part of emulating Christ you have no business arbitrarily giving into impulses of respite. Learn to rest like the one in whose image you are fashioned after. This pattern of rest can be seen in the creational order of day and night.

Creatures Of The Light

John tells us that Christ's life is the light of men. Being creatures of the day we are created to rest at night. When we rest we rest looking upward to the starry heavens. This itself is a reminder of our true rest that we find in our King who is seated on the throne of heaven itself. Without practicing Biblical rest we are not living and dying like Christ. Rest is an essential part of redemptive life but rest that is not accompanied with work is laziness. Laziness is compiled in our modern vernacular with the word depression. Indeed there are varying kinds of depression but one type is what the Bible calls being slothful. The slothful person supposes that because perpetual rest cannot be maintained then there is no point in either working or resting. This is sin and a rejection of God's design for mankind to follow as we are made in his likeness.

Being creatures of the day we die each night and resurrect each morning to intercede, sacrifice, die and repeat the following day. This teaches us to enjoy the mundane activities of everyday living for these activities are those which comprise most of our lives and are therefore the most important. We must learn to start our day with intercession as priests knowing that our lives throughout that day will be sacrificial. We must learn to enjoy the daily activities of performing our duties in our vocations. In this we learn to love the art of maintenance for God himself continues to maintain all things since the creation of the world. We must learn to enjoy restoring fellowship in our homes taking care of all disputes and issues with urgency. Then at the close of the day when there are many more things that could be achieved we choose to rest because God himself allowed for night to fall and he continued his work the following day. It means we do not intentionally perform actions today that will hinder what will be our actions tomorrow. God created the world and did not correct his previous days labors. His labor progressed and our labor should progress also. In all this, remember that Christ's yoke is easy and his burden is light. If life has become overwhelming to you on a daily basis it may be that you have need of serious help.

Allow A Simon In Your Life

If you have been dealt a crushing blow it may be that you need the assistance of your own Simon of Cyrene to help bear the burden you are under. If that is the case then look around. You recognize this in your own life when your zeal begins to wane, when you start to feel depressed, when you become wearisome and fatigued. First get rid of your stupid and accursed pride. Christ himself was helped on his way to Golgotha. If you think yourself stronger than him and need no assistance in a time of great despair then I suggest you humble yourself before you are crushed completely. That way of thinking will get you dead before you reach Golgotha and you'll have wasted your energy on a fool's parade. So make certain the person you finally reach out to is capable of helping you. Don't waste what little patience and energy you have left on someone whose life is in no condition to give you assistance. When you do receive that help remember that they are not the one who ends up on the cross. You are.

A person may help you get your life back in order but they cannot be the one to ultimately maintain it. You still need to daily live out your sacrifice to God as a pleasing aroma. After you have begun to recognize and live your life as a sacrifice, which is the offering up of yourself toward heaven, you will be lifted up. If you know your sins are covered through Christ and you begin to seek to live like Christ in this way you will have peace. It is a peace which no man nor circumstance can ultimately dissuade from your possession. You still may encounter valleys of the shadow of death but you have no need of fear. He prepares a Table for you.  Goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life and you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Live Like Your High Priest 

You are a priest and priests sanctify themselves, perform intercession, and make sacrifice. In that order. That is how Christ did it, that is how the old covenant priesthood functioned, and that is how you do it. Take a deep breathe, confess your sins, ask for his grace, peace, and mercy. Then take up your cross, follow him, and don't worry about tomorrow. He will give you rest.