Tekel : You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Daniel 5:27 (NIV)
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Colossians 2:13-15 (NIV)
Spoiler alert! None of us apart from Christ Jesus measures up. We are all found both morally and spiritually woefully wanting in the presence of God, every.last.one of us - all being big fat sinners in dire need of a Savior. We cannot buy our way clean, work our way clean or argue our way clean. We are robed in the filthy rags of our own doing. But Jesus, Who had no sin, became sin for us on the cross so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Praise Him! Now when God looks upon the believer, He sees a perfect life clothed in the robe of Christ’s righteousness and not in our filthy rags. Amazing.
Simon from Cyrene, who carried the cross for Christ behind Him is a good picture for us as believers now. Jesus bore the cross not that we would escape it but that we would endure it through His power. We must remember that Christ’s work exempts us from sin but not from sorrow. He tells us to deny self and take up the cross and follow Him. Our comfort lies in that it is not our cross but Christ’s which we bear. When our faith brings ridicule, ostracization, loss or hate we are to remember it is Christ’s cross. He has warned us to expect tribulation in this world. We follow His footprints as we keep on His path – He goes before us as the shepherd goes before the sheep. As Simon only had to bear the cross for just a little while and maintained lasting honor for his actions, so too we who now bear His cross for a short time will then receive an eternal a crown of honor that we no doubt will place at Jesus’ feet. Surely we should love the cross and not shrink from it as it is achieving for us eternal rewards which far outweighs anything our earthly minds can imagine.
Then he said to them all: “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. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” Luke 9:23-26 (NIV)