Who Will Crucify You?

Who Will Crucify You?
If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. Luke 9:23-24
You cannot crucify yourself. According to this Scripture we must deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Jesus, but we cannot crucify our own self. We can drive the nail in our feet. We can drive the nail in one hand, but we have no way to drive the nail in the other hand. Jesus didn’t crucify his own self. The Romans and the religious ruling body of the nation of Israel crucified Him. Jesus did deny himself and took up his own cross, but ultimately someone else crucified him.
It is exactly the same way with us. We are to deny ourselves and take up our cross, but ultimately God will bring someone else to actually crucify us. So the question is who will crucify you? How many times have you been in a situation where you just really wanted to tear into somebody and really let them know what you think? Did you do it? Or did you just keep your mouth shut and leave it to the Lord. If you chose to remain silent, did you get mad at yourself for not speaking up for yourself? Most of us would never get into a fist fight with somebody else, but we do much worse by getting in verbal fights with them. Whoever said, sticks and stones my break my bones but words will never harm me was a liar. Our words hurt much worse than sticks and stones. Many people today are still hurting deep down inside because of words someone told them in anger years ago, maybe even decades ago. Wouldn’t it be better to not say things that we cannot take back?
Wouldn’t it be even better if we lived our lives in such a way that we remained in control even under the most trying of circumstances? Even when someone is berating us verbally, we remain under control and don’t retaliate back in the same way we are being attacked. What did Paul say? When we are cursed, we bless. The only way you can ever get to this place is by denying yourself and taking up your cross and following Jesus. Why not rather be wronged? You will never feel good about yourself after a fight whether it’s a physical fight or a verbal fight. Nobody wins! The only way to win is to remain in control and have real compassion for the person who is attacking you. We have to be able to see that the issue is never the issue. There are deep seated issues that are causing the behavior you are looking at. Maybe their father just cursed them out and told them they were worthless right before their encounter with you.
These people are the ones that God has sent into your life to crucify you. So you can die to your desires and your will. Then you can see more clearly God’s purposes and His will for you and for them. When you have died to yourself, you can see clearly to help those who are in pain and in need. Let’s choose like Jesus did, to allow ourselves to be crucified so that God’s purposes can come forth in our life and in the life of all those God has brought into our lives.
Consumed by the call,
Pastor Marty