THE WAY OF CALVARY

This past Sunday was Palm Sunday for us here in Romania; it has been really "strange" for me to have the Easter season so late in the year.  We will celebrate on May 5th; a long gap between celebrating it here and when it was celebrated in the U.S. (a difference of 5 weeks).

In this "gap" of time, the Lord has allowed me to be refined.  I have been struggling with discouragement, and the purging of hurt that comes through others.

As I cry out to the Lord, He keeps telling me "This is the way of Calvary; this is the road I walked - I want you to feel what I felt, so that you can have my heart.".  He laid down all his rights and will for His own life, so that He could accomplish the will of His Father.  He was sold, betrayed, beaten and rejected (Isaiah 53), but the results, and victory, were for me: reconciled to God through forgiveness of sins that His shed blood brought for me.  I am so thankful for His obedience and example.

If anyone knows rejection, it is Him.  The people would gather by the thousands to take what they could from Him, and opened their streets to cry "Hosanna!  Hosanna!" but days later these same people would cry "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!".

Rejection and disappointment: who knows them better than my Savior?  His disciples all scattered in the garden when He was arrested, and He then carried His cross up that long road to the hill of Calvary; to be crucified for my sins, and the sins of the world.

He has a plan for the things He allows me to go through, and promises to walk with me down the road (Romans 8:28 & Hebrews 13:5-6).

He wants to teach me to love others with His heart, despite rejection and disappointment.  His example to me is when He was on that cross - the only time He would be completely abandoned by His Father;  He cried out "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.".

This is His message to me:   Choose the way of Calvary.

"Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other,

just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."

Ephesians 4:32

“Life is wasted if we do not grasp the glory of the cross, cherish it for the treasure that it is, and cleave to it as the highest price of every pleasure and the deepest comfort in every pain. What was once foolishness to us—a crucified God—must become our wisdom and our power and our only boast in this world.”  ― John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life