Morning, April 5 Go To Evening Reading
“They laid the cross on him, that he might bear it after Jesus.”
—Luke 23:26
We see in Simon’s carrying the cross a picture of the work of the Church throughout all generations; she is the cross-bearer after Jesus. Mark then, Christian, Jesus does not suffer to exclude your suffering. He bears a cross, not that you may escape it, but that you may endure it. Christ exempts you from sin but not from sorrow. Remember that, and expect to suffer.
But let us comfort ourselves with this thought: In our case, as in Simon’s, it is not our cross but Christ’s cross that we carry. When you are molested for your piety when your religion brings the trial of cruel mockings upon you, then remember it is not your cross; it is Christ’s cross, and how delightful it is to carry the cross of our Lord Jesus!
You carry the cross after him. You have blessed company; your path is marked with the footprints of your Lord. The mark of his blood-red shoulder is upon that heavy burden. ’Tis his cross, and he goes before you as a shepherd goes before his sheep. Take up your cross daily, and follow him.
Remember, also, that you bear this cross in partnership. Some believe that Simon only carried one end of the cross and not the whole of it. That is possible; Christ may have taken the heavier part against the transverse beam, and Simon may have borne the lighter end. Indeed, it is so with you; you do but carry the light end of the cross, and Christ bore the heavier end.
And remember, though Simon had to bear the cross for a concise while, it gave him lasting honor. Even so, the cross we carry is only for a little while at most, and then we shall receive the crown, the glory. Indeed, we should love the cross and count it very dear instead of shrinking from it when it works out for us: “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”
Go To Morning Reading Evening, April 5
“Before honor is humility.”
—Proverbs 15:33
Humiliation of the soul always brings a joyous blessing to it. If we empty our hearts of self, God will fill them with love. He who desires close communion with Christ should remember the word of the Lord, “To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.” Stoop if you would climb to heaven. Do we not say of Jesus, “He descended that he might ascend?” so must you. You must grow downwards, that you may grow upwards; for the sweetest fellowship with heaven is to be had by humble souls, and by them alone. God will deny no blessing to a thoroughly humbled spirit. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” with all its riches and treasures. The whole exchequer of God shall be made over by deed of gift to the soul which is humble enough to receive it without growing proud because of it. God blesses us all to the fullest extent for what it is safe for him to do. If you do not get a blessing, it is because it is not safe for you to have one. If our heavenly Father were to let your unhumbled spirit win a victory in his holy war, you would pilfer the crown for yourself, and meeting with a fresh enemy, you would fall victim so that you are kept low for your safety. When a man is sincerely humble and never ventures to touch so much as a grain of praise, there is scarcely any limit to what God will do for him. Humility prepares us to be blessed by the God of all grace and allows us to deal efficiently with our fellow men. True humility is a flower that will adorn any garden. This is a sauce with which you may season every dish of life, and you will find an improvement in every case. Whether it be prayer or praise, work or suffering, the genuine salt of humility cannot be used in excess.
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).
April 5: Treating the Symptom
Deuteronomy 7:1–8:20; 2 Corinthians 2:12–17; Psalm 34:1–22
I regularly predict that something will only take me an hour when it takes two. I’m beginning to think that this is a sign of a more significant issue: the tendency to underestimate the severity of a problem. In medical offices, this is called treating the symptoms and not the disease. In street ministry, it’s known as getting addicts off the street rather than helping them understand their addiction.
Addicts rationalize sin. And eventually, sin becomes everything in their lives, which means they rationalize away who they are. If we’re all honest with ourselves, we would see that, like the addict, we like the “gray” area far too much. We want to push the boundaries in the name of freedom, rationality, or cultural appeal.
In Deuteronomy 7:1–8:20, Moses was uninterested in pushing boundaries. He even told the Israelites to stay away from foreigners who worshiped other gods because they would corrupt the fledgling worship of Yahweh (Deut 7:3–4). Paul makes a similar point in 2 Cor 6:14: “Do not become unevenly yoked with unbelievers, for what participation is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?” Paul’s statement is part of a more extensive discussion on why the world is as black and white as God makes it out to be. In 2 Corinthians 2:15, Paul writes, “For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.”
Christ-followers are meant to be a good smell to the world of God’s work and goodness, and they can’t do this if they are not living in His “light.” Corruption infects everyone affiliated with it. We are meant to bring the light into the darkness, not become part of the darkness. Interacting with culture and those who don’t believe is not the same as becoming one with culture and those who don’t think so.
When we see a symptom, we need to recognize there is a disease behind it. We’re all metaphorical addicts. The difference between Christ-followers and the rest is that we recognize the condition and seek Christ, who can heal and save us.
In what ways are you rationalizing your sins or problems? What can you do to understand it the way God would like you to, and what can you do about it?
John D. Barry
John D. Barry and Rebecca Kruyswijk, Connect the Testaments: A One-Year Daily Devotional with Bible Reading Plan (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).
April 5th
His agony and our fellowship
Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, … tarry ye here, and watch with Me. Matthew 26:36, 38.
We can never fathom the agony in Gethsemane, but at least we need not misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and Man in one, face to face with sin. We know very little about Gethsemane from personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary stand for something unique; they are our gateway into Life.
It was not the death on the cross that Jesus feared in Gethsemane; He stated most emphatically that He came on purpose to die. In Gethsemane, He feared that He might not get through as Son of Man. He would get through as the Son of God—Satan could not touch Him there, but Satan’s onslaught was that He would get through as an isolated Figure only, and that would mean that He could be no Saviour. Read the record of the agony in the light of the temptation: “Then the devil leaveth Him for a season.” In Gethsemane, Satan came back and was again overthrown. Satan’s final onslaught against Our Lord as son of Man is in Gethsemane.
The agony in Gethsemane is the agony of the Son of God in fulfilling His destiny as the world's Savior. The veil is drawn aside to reveal all it costs Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God. His agony is the basis of the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ is a triumph for the son of Man. It was a sign that Our Lord had triumphed and that He had triumphed to save the human race. Every human being can get through into the presence of God now because of what the Son of Man went through.
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986).
April 5
That night, they caught nothing
John 21:3
God may let the sinful world succeed in their forbidden schemes, but, blessed be His name, He does not allow His chosen ones to prosper in the path that leads them out of His holy will! He has a storm to send after every Jonah and an empty net for every unbelieving and inconsistent Simon.
A. B. Simpson
Samuel G. Hardman and Dwight Lyman Moody, Thoughts for the Quiet Hour (Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997).
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