Good Friday

As I reflect on the cross today, I am also reminded of the message we heard last weekend in Portland at Imago Dei Community.  Rick was teaching from Luke 9:23- "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..."  Rick called Jesus' statement a "redefinition of life... counter intuitive to our culture."  He went on to lay out the Christian walk as being very hard if you are really in it.  "It's not that Christianity has been tried and proven false;  it's been tried and proven hard- therefore not tried at all."  His key points were 1.) we embrace  2.) we forgive  3.) we give  4.) we serve.  He went on to explain how to make our Chrisitan lives harder (more authentic) by expanding these 4 points:  embracing the stranger, alien, or enemy, as Jesus embraced humanity by entering as one of us; forgiving radically because when Jesus died on the cross- our faults were paid for, and if he died for sin, we should be able to forgive sin; giving our time, money, relationships with the understanding that everything we have is for the sake of others and ultimately for His glory; and lastly serving because we've died to ourselves and even Jesus was able to consider himself the 'lowliest' when he washed the disciples' feet...  Rick concluded stating, "To follow Jesus means that you're covered with sweat, blood and tears... and out of it comes beautiful real living."  Whew.  Even as I look over my notes from that sermon, I am humbled.  Here I am listening to k-love in my comfy house and my big plans for the day are to water the plants and dye easter eggs...  I know the desire to follow Jesus for real is there, I guess I settle for 'easy' as opposed to seeking out harder opportunities, but when I remember how hard it was for Jesus to die on the cross (to the point of sweating blood), I am inspired once again to love Him (for real) in return.