Come Out A Winner

Romans the 6th chapter talks about us being buried with Christ through baptism.  A portion of the 4th verse says "that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father."  It didn't take a lot of self-control for me to be baptised.  How much self-control do you think it took for Jesus to go to the cross for us?

He knew years in advance that He would have to.  Before He started His ministry, He knew He would be rejected by the religious leaders.  He knew that He would perform many miracles.  He knew that He would pour forth the Father's great and abundant love.  The mainstream media would consider Him lower than a common criminal.  Yet, He did all of these things anyway.  Why?  Because the Father had given His Word that He would raise Him back up from the dead by the Father's sheer glory.  Because Jesus shed His blood, He also looked forward to blotting out His people's sins so that fellowship could be restored.

In other words, the world could go ahead and give Him their worst and He would still come out a winner.  His dreams of once again having intimate fellowship with mankind would become a reality.  Everything He ever LOVED for would be brought to pass.

He asks us, also, if we would take up our cross and follow Him.  No, we don't have to die.  Even if it feels like it, it will not kill us to carry our cross.  He did not promise us that it would always feel good.  Most of the time it doesn't.  A lot of the time, our cross is an embarrassing situation.  People look at us when we're going through stuff and think of us as 'losers.'  Sometimes there is pain and agony involved.  So was the cross.  Most of the time it looks like nothing good will come out of it.  God never gave us a cross to make us look like 'dorks' or the castoffs of society.  God asks us to carry OUR cross so that His glory could be manifest in our lives. 

How different would things be in your family if you endured a little suffering and the glory of God did something nobody could have guessed would happen?  What effect would it have on your lost loved ones?  What about your church?  If you started expecting good things to come from the bad circumstances you are facing right now and God showed up with His glory, would revival come?  Would others be encouraged?  Would the power of God begin to spread because of one spark of hope and then another spark of hope and then other sparks of hope?  How different would our enemies view an all out move of the glory of God?

The glory of God is poured out when you and I lay our lives and our hurt feelings down to do the necessary things that honor Him.  Jesus' sacrifice and suffering were nothing to be compared to the glory of God that showed up after His resurrection.  We can (Heb 12:2) endure the cross and despise the shame when we purposely SET THE JOY of the glory of God before us instead of griping about what we are facing.  Let's be like Jesus.  He declared Himself to be THE winner as He went to the cross.  After His obedience to the will of God, a God-thing showed up in Jesus' life.  Saints lets carry on in the same manner to obtain the same outcome.  The Glory of the Lord comes as we carry our cross.  We go into it like a winner and we come out a bonafide winner.