BBD 07.10.14 Cross Carriers (New)
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The Burning
Bush Devotional
07.10.14
Cross Carriers
Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let
him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” - Luke 9:23
NKJV.
Lindsay
Hamon, 61-year-old man from England, for almost half of his life; has been
carrying a literal cross 12 ft long with a crossbeam of 6 ft. Lindsay has
carried his cross across 19 countries and uses his cross as an evangelistic
tool providing him opportunities to tell people about Jesus. He began his
effort of cross-bearing in 1987 carrying the cross for as much as 12 hours a
day never knowing where he would stay during the night. Lindsay
says, “I find
people often want to talk, but if people don’t want to know I walk on. The love
you get from it all is amazing, people will just stop and ask you questions, offer
you food and sometimes a place to stay.” There have been some
difficult times like when he was in Bangladesh and was attacked and the
attackers tried to shoot him. Lindsay says
about the possibility of danger, “There is fear there sometimes because I have a wife and
kids and you don’t want to put yourself in danger. It is really trusting in
God, knowing He will protect you.”
According
to Hamon he has had the opportunity to visit with thousands of curious people
and he has prayed with many of them. Somehow God overcomes the language barrier
that is there at times as Lindsay
shares, “Sometimes you get people who translate for
you, I had one young boy who came out of nowhere when I was talking to around
20 or 30 people and he just translated everything. When it was done he just
disappeared, I never knew who he was or where he came from, it’s amazing.”
When people ask why he is carrying a cross he tells them, “The cross is the greatest symbol of how
much God loves them.” He has so far traveled across these countries:
Belarus, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Belgium, Germany, France, Holland, Ireland,
India, Hungary, Nepal, New Zealand, Italy, Russia, Romania, Poland, Sri Lanka,
Slovakia, Latvia, Denmark and the UK. (MailOnline.com
03.21.13; LindsayHamon.com; Lindsay‘s book, “When God Takes Over” is available
on Amazon.)
Did Jesus mean for us to literally take a cross and carry it on
our shoulders on a daily basis? No, He is making it very clear that living the
Christian life is not a piece of cake. Instead, living the Christian life is
more like carrying a cross to the place of your execution. The cross is
something that the hearers of Jesus were very familiar with, but this is the
first mention of the cross in the written record in the Gospel of Luke (9:23). Those listening to Jesus knew that when the
Roman government condemned someone to die on the cross the condemned person was
made to carry the crossbeam to the place where he was to be executed. Luke adds
one word to the statement made in Luke 9:23 that
Matthew and Mark did not have, and that word is “daily.”
When Jesus says in Luke 9:23, “If
anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross
daily, and follow Me,” it is a cautionary
statement for those who would be followers of Him. Jesus is making it clear
there are costs involved in being His disciple. If you would be a disciple, a
follower, a believer in Jesus, you must be prepared even to die for your faith
in Him. “For whoever desires to save his life will lose
it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it
to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? For
whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed
when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels
(Luke !9:24-26).” May we daily
be cross carriers for Jesus!
Copyright © 2014. Ed Wrather. The
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