Mark 15:21 Then they compelled a certain man, Simon a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus, as he was coming out of the country and passing by, to bear His cross.

The Hebrew word for living is chai – it is the Hebrew letters Chet and Yod. I find it more than remarkable that the letters together create an image of a lamb. When Simon carried that cross beam, something interesting happened. He had to put down whatever else he was carrying, no matter what it was … there was room for nothing else. There wasn’t room for anything else in his life.

The world tells us that life is about what we have … it’s defined by the stuff we’ve accumulated … “whoever dies with the most stuff wins.” That’s not how God, the Creator of Life, defines living. God defines life not by what we pick up but by what we put down. Jesus had once encountered a rich young ruler who asked Him what He needed to do to have eternal life.

Mark 10:21 Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.”

That sounds like Jesus wants him to live a miserable life … Yet Jesus says that He came to bring abundant life.

John 10:10b I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

This idea of letting go of stuff is so different from what we may have learned in school, from friends and maybe even from our own parents. Most people learn that abundance of life comes in the abundance of stuff. A hot air balloon loaded down with stuff won’t fly. If you want it to take flight, you have to drop the weight.

When we take up the cross of Christ and follow Him, we must be willing to put down whatever else we are carrying or maybe even what we are doing, because very often it’s the weight of stuff that keeps us from seeking the kingdom of God.

Matthew 6:31-33 “So don’t worry about these things, saying, What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.

A man caught in an earthquake drops everything in order to brace himself. Stuff never creates life … stuff just accumulates a mess. God creates life, we accumulate a mess and then God rocks our wold so that we have to put down the mess and focus on Him. That’s the grace of God in action because God’s best is the best and His best comes when we have our eyes fixed on Him.

The Big Bang Theory and the theory of evolution boil down to the worship of stuff because both theories mean that stuff is all we’ve got. Only God says all we need is Him. For His people it’s not a matter of survival of the fittest but instead surrender. It’s no longer Dog eat Dog, but it’s Let Go and Let God.

1 John 2:15-17 Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

By the grace of God, sometimes the doors that He opens for us are low and narrow so that we have to enter on our knees and so that we cannot enter with all our baggage. So, if you want to take flight, if you want to abide in Christ through the storms, if you want to take the door God has opened, be prepared to lighten the load.

By the same token, what better way to sideline, derail or backslide a Christian than to heap onto his back distractions, whether they are gadgets, toys, vehicles, or tasks. Guard your heart to make sure you stay focused on God. You cannot be double minded and carry the cross.