To take up your cross means to associate yourself with Christ and to share His rejection. It means you take a stand for Christ even though people make fun of you, persecute you—or even kill you!

If Jesus had not risen from the dead, no right-minded person would have glorified anything so hideous and repulsive as a cross stained with the blood of Jesus . . .An unopened grave would never have opened heaven.

The cross shows the seriousness of our sin—but it also shows us the immeasurable love of God.

The cross is the only way of salvation. And the cross gives a new purpose to life.

God undertook the most dramatic rescue operation in cosmic history. He determined to save the human race from self-destruction, and He sent His Son Jesus Christ to salvage and redeem them. The work of man’s redemption was accomplished at the cross.

The cross is the suffering love of God bearing the guilt of man’s sin, which alone is able to melt the sinner’s heart and bring him to repentance for salvation. “For he hath made him to be sin for us” [2 Corinthians 5:21 KJV].

The heart of the Christian Gospel with its incarnation and atonement is in the cross and the resurrection. Jesus was born to die.

The cross has become a symbol in much of the Western world, misused by many rock stars and others who do not comprehend its significance.

Sin’s masterpiece of shame and hate became God’s masterpiece of mercy and forgiveness. Through the death of Christ upon the cross, sin itself was crucified for those who believe in Him.