God does not want that to be the lesson you leave with today. Rather, the lesson is that you and I are called to take up our cross in every way, including our relationships. It is true that you may be hurt. But you are a disciple of One who was betrayed, who was hurt, and you are no better than Jesus.
To follow Christ is to embrace the cross, to say with the Bible, “Though He was a son He learned obedience through suffering” (Hebrews 5:8). We are not gluttons for punishment. We are not masochistic and desire pain. We are followers of Christ, and to identify with Christ, we bring all of our heartache to Him. We find meaning in our suffering, even in our betrayals, through Christ.
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In dealing with the experience of being hurt by others, to take up the cross is to stop being a victim and begin to be a victor through Jesus Christ.
Think about what God is teaching victims in Genesis 50: “But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:19-20).
Here we can identify our second step. If the first step in moving from victim to victor in our painful relationships is to take up our cross, the second is to
Take Off Your Crown
Stop pretending you are sovereign and confess the truth that only God is sovereign. J.C. Ryle wrote, “Of all the doctrines of the Bible, none is so offensive to human nature as the doctrine of God’s sovereignty.”2
I have found this to be true in my nature. It is the final act of submission — to say that I am not in control, but God is. In confessing this, you will find healing.
If you are in control, then your crucifixion has no meaning. You must hold hostage in your heart that person who is perpetrating this injustice upon you. You cannot forgive because you have been wronged.
But if God is sovereign, then the One who brought your cross is Christ Himself. This is hard language. It means that like Joseph, like Paul, and, yes, most like Jesus, you see God Himself sovereignly ruling in all of life to bring you to the point of crucifixion. Crucifixion is, as Gene Edwards puts it in his book Crucified by Christians,3 meant to destroy. God has destruction on His mind in your life. He intends to purge, to refine. As the old Puritan Thomas Watson put it, to put the gold into the fire until the last dross has drained from the metal. Jesus was crucified by His Father. And it was to His Father that He cried.