A Cross Moving on Wheels

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A Cross Moving on Wheels

By Bobby Graham

The Reflector – June 2009

A few days ago as my wife and I were traveling to a nearby town, we noticed a man rather easily and briskly moving a wooden cross, which was attached to wheels. From his dress I judged him to be a modern imitation of Jesus, just as I took his cross to be an imitation of the cross on which our Savior died. As he wheeled it along rather quickly, without any visible sign of groaning or sigh from his burden, I also concluded that he had no real conception of what Jesus had done in his act of bearing his own cross.

How similar that cross was to the attempts of people today to “serve the Lord.” People frequently carve out their own way and style of serving God, thinking their efforts will enjoy divine favor. It is truly amazing how humans somehow rationalize that if their efforts please them, they also please God. Why do we have such difficulty with pleasing God first in what we do and adjusting our attitude so that it then pleases us? Think of some important observations from this incident:

1. Man tends to project his own will on God in an unending display of will worship/self-made religion (Col. 2:18-23). Both the worship of angels and neglecting of the physical body (asceticism) illustrate such attempts on man’s part in the Colossians passage. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Prov. 14:12). Subjective feelings are too often used as the measure of what is right, but God never elevated them to that level, did He? How could such sincere efforts be rejected by God? It might be wise to consult Nadab and Abihu, Cain, or David and Uzzah about that matter (Lev. 10; Gen. 4; 2 Sam. 6). God has clearly demonstrated his displeasure with such human efforts.

2. Man sometimes makes his demands on himself much easier than those of God are. The cross of Jesus was an instrument of physical torture and death, not a convenience easily handled. When He demanded our taking up the cross daily, He referred to our spiritual crucifixion of self to serve Him (Lk. 9:23), not to some physical imitation made comfortable by the addition of modern machinery, such as wheels. There is no way to lessen the impact of that demand or ease its burden and yet please God; there is no short-cut to dying to sin and self!

3. Human substitutes are utter failures in divine service. They show nothing of devotion to the will of the Master, but much to our own spirit of contrivance or innovation. How is that spirit able to serve the Lord? In the Bible the Lord had made known how He desires all to serve Him. Why can we not content ourselves with offering to God that which He has asked or mandated? Those willing to offer the God-appointed service please God; those who contrive their own “service/worship” serve themselves (Rom. 16:18; Phil. 3:19).

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