By Brooke Momblow
“My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will. My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” Matthew 26:39, 42
Because of love, Jesus gave up his rights. Leaving heaven to become human meant a giving up of his rights as God. Then he surrendered not only his human right to justice but his right to life. No one forced him. He chose to take up his cross.
Paul considered himself a prisoner of Jesus. Though he was a slave to no man, Paul made himself a slave to every man. (1 Cor. 9:19, Eph.3:1) Why? Love. God’s love for Paul caused Paul to pour out himself on behalf of others. In prison, Paul believed he was not a prisoner of Rome but a witness to them sent by God’s will. A Roman soldier who understood the rights of citizenship was afraid when he discovered he had possibly violated Paul’s rights (Acts 22:29). Paul had given his rights back to God as a gift though. He chose to take up his cross.
Recently I’ve struggled with how to love someone in my circle. They take advantage, manipulate for their own good at the cost of others; they’re ungrateful, entitled, and smug when they get away with it. I don’t want anyone to associate me with that kind of character so I don’t like claiming them as part of my circle. Nevertheless, they are a part of my life, it isn’t a choice for me to make. The choice I do have though is to take up my cross. To love them. By giving the rights of my reputation, my finances, justice, my right to my will… back to God as a gift, I’m saying that I want His will to be done.
To my eyes, this person in my circle is unhelped and unchanged by my efforts at loving like Jesus. And to be honest, I haven’t had the attitude of Christ; I’ve been angry and resentful. Until recently that is, when God got a hold of my heart. While I was praying about the situation, I asked God what I should do because God tells us in scripture to be wise when dealing with unbelievers, he tells us to be both cunning and gentle. So my question to God was if I should turn the other cheek? Or if I was supposed to protect myself, draw healthy boundaries. I felt like the Spirit gave me this passage:
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Luke 6:27-30,35-36
This is so radical. So counter to sound judgment. I feel like I might have a lot to lose if God means this literally.
In scripture I find that God’s answer to a situation is usually bizarre. When his directions are followed, God is glorified in transformative ways. These aren’t new ideas he is asking us to live, these paths to righteousness are two thousand years old. As long as “take up your cross” remains just spiritual terminology, we will find we have missed the cross.
Lauren Cunningham, the founder of YWAM (Youth with A Mission), talks about learning to relinquish his rights to God. Here is just one story he shares:
We were at a Youth for Christ camp in New Zealand sharing the word of God with many unsaved teens. I was walking the road one night and praying when the Lord spoke to me and asked, “What do you have in your hand?”
I pulled my hand out of my pocket and said, “I’ve got some money, Lord.”
He said, “throw it down,” and so I threw it down and walked off thinking God was going to lead someone to that money.
Suddenly the Lord said, “Go back and pick it up.”
So then I asked, “God is that really you?” You know – is it God, is it the devil, is it my imagination… all the voices we have to check out. It was the Lord, so I went back and picked up the money.
As I was coming back into camp there was a young man I had been witnessing to earlier that day in counseling who was deeply involved in drugs, and as I walked towards him the Lord said, “Give it to him.”
I said, “No God, he’s a drug addict.” Isn’t it amazing all the things we save God from making mistakes in? I walked right past the young man.
The Lord said to me, “I could trust you back there to obey me. Why can’t I trust you now when you know what the circumstances are?”
My response to God was that I needed confirmation, even though I hadn’t asked for it before when he told me to throw the money down. You see, confirmation can sometimes just expose the rebellion in our hearts, our stubbornness.
I asked the Lord to have the young man meet me at a building I was going towards even though he was going in the other direction. I wanted an unbeliever to be more obedient to the Lord than I was!
Anyway, as I got to the corner of the building there he was. So I said to him, “God wants me to give you this money.” The young man began to weep and said that after talking with me earlier that day he had told God he would go to a certain Christian rehabilitation program and now with the money I’d given him he had enough to go.
Today the man is in full time ministry. What God was showing me was that it is often the little thing that we won’t take to the cross [that makes all the difference.]
We have lots of rights. Rights like justice and freedom. Rights to nationality and rights because of nationality. Rights to sleep, food, clothes, culture, faith, finance, family.
Lauren Cunningham, Jim Elliot, Elizabeth Elliot, Amy Carmichael, Corrie ten Boom, George Muller, Mother Theresa, Billy Graham, and so many others. Their stories are about being aware of how much they were loved by God and their desire to follow him in love even if it meant giving up their rights. Their stories are living examples of living out the Word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit despite the circumstances they found themselves in or willingly walked into. They are dangerous people to learn about because you might find yourself so inspired that you pack for India next week!
Admission: Practicing sacrificial love is new for me, I’m still learning.
Realization: God is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. If I do the same, then I am His child.
To Ponder: As Christians we are heirs with Christ, we have all the rights of sonship, a much greater value than what we might give up here on earth. Isn’t that the way of God’s kingdom though? The life we try to save we lose, but the life we give up for Christ’s sake we save. What does taking up my cross look like in reality?
o Relinquishing our rights does not mean giving up our responsibilities.
o A few signs that we might be clinging to certain rights might be: our temper, bitterness, or fear of loss.
o What is directly in front of you that would require that you give up a right in order to love like Jesus?
o Are we willing to trust God’s plan?
Lord, show us what rights we are clinging to. Teach us to cling only to you.
Amen.
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