The Calvary Road - By Wayne Weaver

Father, in the name of Jesus I come to you this evening and Lord I ask that you might bring this word to us, that it would challenge our hearts and challenge our lives. Father I pray that you might speak to us, minister to us, allow these words to go into us for the rest of our lives is my prayer. I pray for the anointing of your Holy Spirit upon the ears that want to hear. I pray Lord that these seeds will not fall in another ground or in a rocky place but that they fall into an open heart, a heart that has been seeking you. I pray this in the name of Jesus, Amen.

In the parable of the sower in Luke 8, we find that those whose hearts are the good ground keep the Word of God and "bring forth fruit with patience." It doesn't say they keep the Word "with great excitement and thrills and no trials and trouble." No, they keep it with patience.

Many believers treat their Christianity as temporary, like McDonald's and microwave food. Are you convinced we're in this Christian life for the next million years? For eternity? Everything we see around us will fall and burn and deteriorate. But we're in this Christian life that is to have no end.

When we give our lives to Christ, we don't give them to him for just a moment. We don't go for victory over just a particular sin. No, we embark on the Calvary Road, and that road leads on and on into eternity.

Jesus said, "The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day" (Luke 9:22). Jesus' suffering didn't start when he stood before Pilate. He was disliked from the beginning, when Herod tried to destroy him while he was still a baby. He lived for 30 years as a carpenter before beginning his ministry. Imagine that. Here was a man who knew he was the one to save the world, yet he worked hard for 30 years, patiently, before doing anything we would deem all that important.

Jesus waited 30 years to fulfill the calling that God had placed on him, while we often rush into a calling long before we're equipped for it. We want to turn the world upside down right now. But Jesus knew how to bear his cross with patience.

In Luke 9:23 Jesus continues: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." What is cross bearing? Is it crawling in glass like the Buddhists do? Is it walking on coals of fire? Is it wearing black and looking mad? There are people who do all of that, but it has little to do with bearing a cross.

The cross works against all self-life. Perhaps when a Buddhist walks on coals of fire he gains some sense of giving up himself, but then he becomes proud of it, and that works directly contrary to the cross. Cross bearing is the need to die daily. It threatens our life continually. It destroys our pride.

Our tendency is always to want to be somebody. We want to be specially thought of, to look a little prettier or speak with more intelligence. Cross bearing works against that. Many people would like to stand behind the pulpit because there is a self in them that yearns for it. The Christian life isn't about being admired as we stand behind a pulpit. It's about walking the road of Calvary every moment of every day, bearing the death to ourselves, which is the cross of Christ.

We face far greater battles in our spiritual lives than we do in our physical lives. Though Jesus had enemies who tried to destroy him, the relentless attack against his spirit was far greater. We must be equipped for those battles. The road to Calvary is a road of preparation, a narrow and difficult road that God uses to shape us. We must walk that road in patience and faith.

I often hear in Christian testimonies, "I was tempted to give up" or "I almost gave up last week." No, no, no. That shouldn't be in our vocabulary. We'll be tested to the roots, tested to the depths of our spiritual life, but we still don't give up. We go on. We don't respond to how we feel but to how we believe. We exercise our mind and heart to believe in the death that Calvary brings us. It reflects a lack of faith for a man or woman to constantly talk about giving up.

When we laid down our lives and were water baptized, we forever sealed the books and said we were done with the old life. We made our decision then, a decision of the will. We don't have to make another decision. When persecution begins and they come to put us in prison or behead us, we don't stop to decide, "Now, Lord, will I go on or won't I?" The decision has been made. There is no question of giving up.

Through the cross of Christ we died to all desire to go back to Egypt. Now we move on to the Promised Land, regardless of the obstacles along the way.

Listen, friend, it is only normal that you should experience trials and temptations. We have an enemy and we remain at war. But our enemy cannot defeat our Lord. Satan tried constantly to destroy the work of Jesus but couldn't do it. Jesus never let down his guard or came close to giving up. In the end he sacrificed his own life; no one took it from him.

Think of what your attitude would be if we were at war and you were gathered as troops preparing to fight. Suppose I said I had a secret report that the enemy was going to cross the mountain tomorrow. You wouldn't go up that mountain expecting the enemy to walk blindly past, would you? No, you would go expecting a fierce battle. You would make up your mind beforehand to stand firm and not give up.

But in the Christian battle you sit back and say, "Well, I don't think I can do it. I'm giving up."

If you give up, what do you give up to? When Jesus asked Peter, "Are you going to leave me too?", Peter replied, "No. No one else has the words of eternal life." You see? We have no option. There is only one way for a Christian to go, and that is down the Calvary Road.

Yes, there are times of discouragement and times when we might draw ourselves up and dress our wounds, but we don't give up, just as Jesus never gave up though pressed at every turn.

Jesus was a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. Many stumbled over him. He didn't fit in with what they wanted or expected. And they let him know it. That kind of treatment built character in Jesus. It prepared him for the road he had to travel.

The Word says, "Blessed is he who is not offended in me." When the trials come, do we stumble over Jesus and take offense at him, or do we let him work on us and perfect us? He wants to take the pride out of our life. Blessed is the man who can praise his name and go right on through life, not looking to the left or to the right.

Matthew says that the road to destruction is wide and full of many people, while the road to life is narrow with very few. I believe about 50 percent of all the people in the United States are professing Christians, but how many are truly on the Calvary Road? Many have a little experience with the Lord, perhaps a sprinkling when they're young, and still others say Jesus came into their life--but nothing changes. The Bible says old things pass away when we are born again. If old things have not passed away, then you are not on the narrow road. Let's not kid ourselves with this. The Calvary Road is a straight and narrow road that few ever find.

I'm not saying the old flesh will reach perfection in this life. But the new man, who we are birthed with when we are born again by the grace of God that saves us, is created in righteousness. Once God has come in and changed our lives, those old patterns of sin pass away. All things become new.

Then there are trials that continue to purify us. We may think we are clean as far as we know, but the Holy Spirit will allow difficulties into our life to make us aware of more problems. This is not a Christianity where someone lays hands on us and we are instantly delivered and never have a problem again. That happens at times with some specific sins, but that isn't the normal pattern of how God moves us to holiness. The microwave attitude is dangerous; because when the deliverance isn't instant we lose patience and are prone to give up.

Let's pick a sin many of us struggle with--bitterness--and see how God often deals with us over time. When somebody wrongs us, we naturally turn bitter, and God will "turn up the heat" on us to push us to deal with that bitterness. We think we've forgiven the person, but a few months later God allows a new trial--a hotter flame--and as we react to it we discover we still have bitterness there. He keeps turning up the temperature 10 degrees at a time until we get on our knees and repent of our own way.

This is the Calvary Road. The Lord continues to work to free his people as long as they live. It's marvelous to see how he works so patiently in our lives. We, in turn, must let him.

The Bible says that the Son scourges those he loves. If the Lord loves you and sees you have pride in a certain thing, he might have to make you a complete flop in that area to bring you down and humiliate you. Let me tell you how the Lord has deeply humiliated me in the past. I used to have an answer for everybody. I thought I had a grip on this spiritual life. It's not that way anymore. Over time he brought me low to show me that I am not the answer but he is the answer.

If you thought you had things together and all at once they started falling apart, regard that as God's blessing on your life. The Calvary Road causes people to repent. It brings a complete dependence on Christ in our lives. It shows us that unless we have his strength, our strength is nothing.

Yet the Calvary Road isn't burdensome; it's a blessing. With the trials and challenges comes joy. Only a three-letter word, seemingly insignificant, yet it transforms the whole venture. That joy is there in the morning, throughout the day, and when we go to bed. For as we learn to depend less on ourselves and more on our Lord, we are ever filled with new wonders and delights. It's so refreshing to see him work on us.

Some people embark on a false Calvary Road where they sit in sackcloth and ashes and give their alms to be seen of men. They try to glory in their trials. The real Calvary Road, by contrast, uses the trials to God's glory and builds us into strong and holy men. It's through the Calvary Road that God deals with every part of us--our soul, our emotion, our will, and our intellect.

Too many people look at the cross we must bear as something external only. I grew up in circles were the cross is known as the clothes we wear. If that is the case, the work of the cross is not very deep but can be bought at a discount store. No, the work of the cross is in our hearts, and it shines forth from our lives.

As we continue our walk, the Calvary Road grows more and more narrow. There is no room for unforgiveness, bitterness, gossip, or envy. All of those sins kill the joy of the walk. All of those sins hold us back and slow us down. Are you pressing forward or are you on hold? Where are you today on the Calvary Road?

In 1 Corinthians, Paul says that the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness but to us that are saved the power of God. Do you want God's power and his anointing on your life? Walk the Calvary Road. Seek out the narrow way. The world would call it foolishness to seek out the way of death, but that is the way of life.

Then in Philippians Paul says that Christ will "change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body...." The cross will start fashioning our lives--from the life of a curse to a life of blessing, from the life of sin to a life of freedom, from the life of guilt to a life of holiness.

Finally in Revelation 19 we read about the marriage of the Lamb and how his wife has made herself ready, "And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints." The wife doesn't sit around in her old clothes when the Lamb comes; she makes herself ready. If we are the wife or the bride of Christ, we continually make ourselves ready. As we travel down the Calvary Road, we let God shape and mold us into more patience, more holiness, and more godliness.