Growing in Christ
taking up your cross
Grace Tried is Glory in its Infancy
03 years ago
As we have not far to carry it, and Christ carries the heaviest part; yes, all the burden for us; yes, us and our burden too; so, in the last place, it is reviving to think what an innumerable multitude of blessings and mercies are the fruit and offspring of a sanctified cross. Since that tree was so richly watered with the blood of Christ; what store of choice, and rich fruits does it bear to believers?
Our sufferings (says one) are washed in the blood of Christ, as well as our souls. “For Christ’s merits bought a blessing to the crosses of the sons of God. Our troubles owe us a free passage through him. Devils, and men, and crosses, are our debtors; and death, and all storms are our debtors, to blow our poor tossed bark over the water freight free: and to set the travelers in their own known ground. Therefore we shall die, and yet live. – I know no man has a velvet cross, but the cross is made of what God will have it; but verily, howbeit, it be no warrentable market to buy a cross, yet I dare not say, O that I had liberty to sell Christ’s cross, lest therewith also I should sell joy, comfort, sense of love, patience, and the kind visits of a bridegroom. I have but small experience of sufferings for Christ, but let my Judge and witness in heaven, lay my soul in the balance of justice; if I find not a young heaven, and a little paradise of glorious comforts, and soul-delighting love-kisses of Christ in suffering for him and his truth. – My prison is my palace, my sorrow is with child of joy; my losses are rich losses, my pain easy pain, my heavy days are holy days and happy days. I may tell a new tale of Christ to my friends. O what owe I to the file, and to the hammer, and to the furnace of my Lord Jesus! who has now let me see how good the wheat of Christ is, that goes through his mill, and his oven, to be made bread for his own table. Grace tried is better than grace, and more than grace. It is glory in its infancy.”
“Who knows the truth of grace without a trial. – O how little gets Christ of us, but what he wins (to speak so) with much toil and pains? And how soon would faith freeze without a cross? Bear your cross therefore with joy.”
John Flavel, Works 1:331
There is not much to add here, I believe Flavel speaks for himself on this quote. I have been so struck by the line: “Grace tried is better than grace and more than grace. It is glory in its infancy.” What a profoundly helpful insight and perspective as Christians suffer. We see this perspective of grace in trial being filled with and propelling glory in Jesus’ words recorded by John: “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you…” (John 15:20) and regarding this, he prays to his Father, “All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them…I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world…Sanctify themin the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctifiedin truth” (John 17:10,14,17,18). Oh, how Christ is glorified by grace enriched in our lives under trial, where his strength and glory are magnified in our weakness, which gives us a stronger taste for heaven!
Christ Bears the Heaviest End of Our Cross
03 years ago
As we shall carry the cross of Christ but a little way, so Christ himself bears the heaviest end of it. And as one happily expresses, he says of their crosses, half mine. He divideth sufferings with them, and takes the largest share to himself. “O how sweet a sight (says one sweetly) is it to see a cross between Christ and us. To hear our Redeemer say, at every sigh, at every blow, and eatery loss of a believer, half mine. For they are called the sufferings of Christ, and the reproach of Christ, Col. 2:24. Heb. 11:26. As when two are partners or owners of a ship, half of the gain, and half of the loss, belongs to either of the two. So Christ in our sufferings, is half gainer, and half loser, with us: yes, the heaviest end of the black tree lies on your Lord. It falls first upon him, and but rebounds from him upon you:” “The reproaches of them that reproached you, are fallen upon me,” Psalm. 69:9. Nay, so speak as the thing is, Christ does not only bear half, or the better part, but the whole of our cross and burden. Yes, he bears all, and more than all; for he bears us and our burden too, or else we would quickly sink, and faint under it.
John Flavel, Works 1:330-331.
When in suffering, we are not alone in Christ. Those outside of him bear their whole cross, but those who belong to Christ bear only half, and their half they hold up is by his own strength. It does not feel this way many times in our trials, but the spiritual and supernatural reality of the Christian life does not necessarily feel more than natural to them. Christian suffering does not mean that the suffering is not real. Rather, it means the Christian sees it as all the more real, and with a sobered mind by the victory of Christ on the cross they take the suffering as evidence for their need for Christ and his returning. Thus, Christ bears half our cross, and yet he bears the whole thing.
(As a note here, I’ve updated the post for yesterday’s Flavel quote Sorrow And The Saints Are Not Married.)
Sorrow and The Saints Are Not Married
03 years ago
It should be enough to me (says a holy one) that Christ will have joy and sorrow halfers of the life of the saints. And that each of them should have a share of our days, as the night and day are kindly partners of time, and take it up between them. But if sorrow be the greediest halfer of our days here, I know joy’s day shall dawn, and do more than recompense all our sad hours.
Let my Lord Jesus, (since he will do so) weave my bit-and-span length of time with white and black; well and woe. – Let the rose be neighbor with the thorn. – “When we are over the water, Christ shall cry, down crosses, and up heaven for evermore; down hell, and down death, and down sin, and down sorrow; and up glory, up life, up joy for evermore. It is true, Christ and his cross are not separable in this life; howbeit Christ and his cross part at heaven’s door: for there is no house room for crosses in heaven. One tear, one sigh, one sad heart, one fear, one loss, one thought of trouble cannot find lodging there.” – Sorrow and the saints are not married together! or suppose it was so, heaven shall make a divorce. Life is but short, and therefore crosses cannot be long. Our sufferings are but for a while, 1 Pet. 5:10. They are but the sufferings of the present time, Rom. 8:18.”
John Flavel, Works 1:330
I found this section from Flavel very helpful in reflecting on different aspects of Jesus’ command: “take up your cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Flavel begins by making the simple observation about the Christian life: half of it is suffering, half of it is joy. If you were side-lined by what “halfers” meant as I would, that’s what he intended (and not “heifers” – which is how I initially read it in my head; it made for an odd reading). This I believe is part of what Paul means when he says that the Christian is “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor. 6:10). But Flavel makes the observation that sorrow will pass, and glory and joy will fill our view and hearts for all eternity.
This is where he steps into saying that while the saint may seem to be married to perpetual suffering and sorrow they will divorce that sorrow when stepping into glory. One can’t help but think of Jesus Christ “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2), suffering, sorrow, and an “unfruitful ministry” was his life. (Do we ever stop to pause and reflect on how we have the tendency to point to massively fruitful ministers as the ideal for ministry and forget that Jesus himself saw maybe a couple hundred true followers in his life? Thankfully I’ve heard Piper, Chandler, etc. address this from the stage God’s given them. There’s no delusions in their minds on this issue, but what about us who watch and see them?)
Oh that I would meditate more on how short life is, and how small these sufferings are compared to the glory they are presently working in me and preparing me for in the final coming of Jesus Christ.
Light Christianity
03 years ago
But, verily, I see Christianity is conceived to be more easy and lighter than it is; so that I sometimes think I never knew anything but the letters of that name; for our nature contenteth itself with little in godliness. Our “Lord Lord” seemeth to us ten “Lord-Lords.” Little holiness in our balance is much, because it is our own holiness; and we love to lay small burdens upon our soft natures, and to make a fair court-way to heaven. And I know it were necessary to take more pains than we do, and not to make heaven a city more easily taken than God hath made it. I persuade myself that many runners shall come short, and get a disappointment. Oh! how easy is it to deceive ourselves, and to sleep, and wish that heaven may fall down in our laps! Yet for all my Lord’s glooms, I find Him sweet, gracious, loving, kind; and I want both pen and words to set forth the fairness, beauty, and sweetness of Christ’s love, and the honour of this cross of Christ, which is glorious to me, though the world thinketh shame thereof. I verily think that the cross of Christ would blush and think shame of these thin-skinned worldings, who are so married to their credit that they are ashamed of the sufferings of Christ. O the honour to be scourged and stoned with Christ, and to go through a furious faced death to life eternal! But men would have [security] against Christ’s cross.
Samuel Rutherford, Letters (Carlisle, Banner of Truth Trust), p. 145. (Italics mine.)
Benifiting From A Cross
03 years ago
As I mentioned before, I’ve been reading the Letters of Samuel Rutherford. What an amazingly wise man, who knew God, and profoundly understood the Savior. Below is a quote from a letter he wrote to a woman friend of his who had just lost yet another child. You can read the full letter here, #35. I pray you benefit from this as much as I have:
I verily believe when, I write this, your Lord hath taught your Ladyship to lay your hand on your mouth. But I shall be far from desiring your Ladyship, or any others, to cast by a cross, like an old useless bill that is only for the fire; but rather would wish each cross were looked in the face seven times, and were read over and over again. It is the messenger of the Lord, and speaks something; and the man of understanding will hear the rod, and Him that hath appointed it. Try what is the taste of the Lord’s cup, and drink with God’s blessing, that ye may grow thereby. I trust in God, whatever speech it utter to your soul, this is one word in it, – “Behold blessed is the man whom God correcteth” (Job 5:17); and that it saith to you, “Ye are from home while here; ye are not of this world, as your Redeemer, Christ, was not of this world.” There is something keeping for you, which is worth the having. All that is here is condemned to die, to pass away like a snowball before a summer sun; and since death took first possession of something of yours, it hath been and daily is creeping nearer and nearer to yourself, howbeit with no noise of feet. Your Husbandman and Lord hath lopped off some branches already; the tree itself is to be transplanted to the high garden. In a good time be it. Our Lord ripen your Ladyship. All these crosses (and indeed, when I remember them, they are heavy and many,-peace, peace be the end of them I) are to make you white and ripe for the Lord’s harvest-hook. I have seen the Lord weaning you from the breasts of this world. It was never His mind it should be your patrimony; and God be thanked for that. Ye look the liker one of the heirs. Let the movables go; why not? They are not yours. Fasten your grips upon the heritage j and our Lord Jesus make the charters sure, and give your Ladyship to grow as a palm-tree on God’s mount Zion; howbeit shaken with winds, yet the root is fast. This is all I can do, to recommend your case to your Lord, who hath you written upon the palms of His hand. ~ Letters of Samuel Rutherford, p. 98-99
