Hosanna Restoration Church

Today we celebrate the empty tomb, and I want to look at the power of the resurrection and the significance of the cross with a little different slant. You see I have always looked at the scripture of picking up the cross more as burden to bear, even though I know that Jesus bore our burdens and carried our sorrows. However, as I meditated on these things this week I had a mental picture that changed all of that.

In my picture, I saw Jesus pick up the very cross that he was crucified on and wield it like a giant hammer to smash the power of the enemy. My first thought was that it was like a pick with pointed ends, but then I realized that unlike a pick which would wound and poke holes, the flat surface of the cross would instead smash what it hit beyond repair.

With this I instantly thought of how Christ Jesus came in to the world to destroy the works of the enemy. Jesus used the very instrument that the devil thought brought him victory, to produce the ultimate victory over the power of the enemy.

So if we apply this thought to picking up the cross, we get an entirely different picture. We are no longer feeling condemned because we do not measure up. We no longer feel like there is some giant and unbearable burden that we must carry to prove that we are His followers. Instead, we see that we have a weapon to wield that cannot be stopped.

Instead of feeling like Jesus has given us some impossible task to complete, we see that He has already made arrangements for us each to have our own weapon of mass destruction over all the power of the enemy. If we do not pick up that weapon, we will never be able to do all that we have been called to do or be what have been made to be.

I am not certain that I have the proper words to convey what I have sensed from this revelation but I trust that the Holy Spirit is planting the seeds that can make all the difference in how we walk out our relationship realizing that all power has been given unto us.

The same power that raised Christ from the dead is working in us to complete what God has begun in our hearts and lives. The cross was not intended to burden us; it was the instrument of ultimate victory. We are not out to simply pierce the darkness; we have been called to smash it.

Can you sense the difference between carrying something too heavy to carry, and being able to swing it like a form-fitted tool? It is perfectly balanced so that you can swing it with maximum power and accuracy. Can you see why if we do not pick up that cross, we will never be able to walk the path that He leads us on? He leads us into battle to win, and gives us the ultimate weapon for total victory. Pick up that cross.