22/08/2026
The failure with many people is that they make a distinction between the cross of Christ and their own crosses. There is no cross that comes to any person on earth, except the cross of Christ. If we will always remember this, it will be life and joy to us.
The Lord does not give us some crosses of our own,—little crosses adapted to different ones,—one having one cross and another another. We cannot separate Christ from His cross. Christ is crucified; He is the only crucified one; therefore whatever cross comes to us must be the cross of Christ; and that cross is with us continually. But in the cross of Christ we find Christ Himself.
What do we get through the cross?—Forgiveness of sins, reconciliation. “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” 1 Peter 3:18. “That He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross.” It is the cross, then, that unites us to God, and makes us one with Him. Everything then that is a real cross is life to us, because it brings us to God. Take the things that come to us; new duties, perhaps, are revealed to us; sins, it may be, are shown to us, that must be denied. Different things come up that cut directly across our habits and our own way and convenience. We can take them in a hard and cheerless way, groaning over our religion, and giving everybody that comes near a the idea that it does not agree with us, but that we must endure the service of Christ, hoping that by and by we shall get something better, when we get out of this grinding service. Or we can find joy in the cross, and salvation and peace and rest, by recognising that cross as the cross of Christ.
PTUK February 22, 1894
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