MATTHEW 10:38; LUKE 9:23 – And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

THEME OF THE DAY. THE FAMILY BADGE. All of us carry some type of identification. If we need to travel by air, it isn’t happening without some form of picture ID. When it comes to life, ID cards and badges are simply part of it. They verify who we are. So what would be the form of identification or badge verifying we are Christ’s people? It would be the cross. We are cross-bearers identifying with our Lord’s cross. In an excellent book written during the mid-nineteenth century by Horatius Bonar, he wonderfully expounds this “family badge”. The name of the book is Night of Weeping, Morning of Joy. Here are his insightful words on the cross being “the family badge” for Christians . . .

“It is truly a family badge: they (Christians) are all cross-bearers. This is the unfailing token by which each member may be recognized. They all bear a cross. Nor do they hide it as if ashamed of it. They make it their boast. ‘God forbid that we should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus, by whom the world is crucified to us, and we unto the world.’ Sometimes it is lighter, and sometimes it is heavier; sometimes it has more of shame and suffering, and sometimes less, but still it is upon them. They carry it wherever they go. And it is always a cross: more merely so in name, but in reality, a token of reproach and sorrow. Sometimes they are represented as carrying it, and sometimes as being nailed to it, but it is still the cross.”

“They took it up when first they believed in Jesus and owned Him as their all. Then it was that they forsook the world’s tents and went without the gate, bearing the reproach of the crucified One. He whom they follow both bore the cross and was nailed to it, and why should they shrink from the like endurance? Shall they be ashamed of Him? Shall they not rather count it honorable to follow where He has led the way, and to bear for Him some faint resemblance of what He bore for them? Shall anything in the world be esteemed more precious, more honorable than the cross of their beloved Lord? The world derides and despises it, but it is the cross of Jesus; and that is all to them. A saint of other days, a cross-bearer of the olden time, has said, ‘O blessed cross of Christ, there is no wood like Thine!’”

“Besides, this was the Master’s will. He has laid on each the command to bear the cross. ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me’ (Luke 9:23). ‘He that taketh not his cross, and follows after me, is not worthy of me’ (Matthew 10:38). The cross, then, is the badge of discipleship, and no follower of the Lord can be without it. The two things are inseparable. God has joined them, and man cannot sunder them. No cross, no saint. No cross, no Son. We must carry His cross all our life; we must be baptized with His baptism; we must endure His reproach; we must glory in being clothed with His shame. The flesh must be crucified with its affections and lusts; our members must be mortified; our old man must take the place of shame; we in whom the flesh still remains, though its dominion is broken, must be willing to appear as outcasts and malefactors before the world, as Jesus did when He bore our sins upon the hill of shame. Jesus, then, with His own hand lays the cross on each one who comes to Him, saying, ‘Take this and follow me. Take it and be reproached for Me. Take it and endure tribulation for Me. Take it, and count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ thy Lord. Take it and be willing to go even to prison or to death for Me to the end and receive the unfading crown.’ Learn to endure the cross and to despise the shame.”

So, are we carrying our Christian identification card? Are people seeing our lives wearing the family badge? We are people of the cross, not just believing in it, but also carrying it as our mark of belonging to Him who died on one for us.

PRAYER: “Father, forgive me when I want my life care-free, pain-free, and tear-free. You never designed it that way.”

QUOTE: “If we knew no sorrow, pain, suffering or loss in this life, our longing for heaven would be non-existent”