Am I Wearing the Cross? Or Is It Wearing Me?

Am I wearing the cross,

or is it wearing me?

These words turned over and again in that semi-wakefulness before dawn. I have never worn a crucifix. It wasn’t about that.

I remember thinking as a ten-year-old self that I was “very religious.”  I was thinking that because I attended church with my family. While I no longer want to be religious, those days did set my feet on The Way.

Still, in those early days, I was wearing a cross. My outward behaviors were the crucifix I wore.  I wore it Sundays, and eventually throughout the week.

Today, decades later, the cross is wearing me. It is for me as Paul wrote: I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Jesus has become my entire spiritual ecosystem.  It is in and for His Kingdom that I live. The Kingdom is the place where my hopes and dreams reside.  By His grace, I have been made a son of God (John 1:12) -- a son of the King of kings: a prince, you might say.

In recent years, I have realized that from my identity will flow my behaviors and even my thoughts.   If I wear a cross around my neck or on my lapel, that’s one thing. But if I am a prince in the Kingdom of God, that's another thing entirely.

If this sounds like boasting, it is. I am  boasting about the one who took a mess like me, and turned me into a prince.  

 

I know that my journey of faith is not complete.  However, I also know this: when my Father looks at me, he sees a prince of His Kingdom.  That is who I am and who I am becoming.

He is willing to do that for you, too.