“Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.” — Hebrews 12:3

I was interested in this headline the other day in a Pennsylvania paper — “World in an Awful Mess.” It is true … the world is in an awful mess. But as we examine the record, it doesn’t change or alter anything the Lord has told us. He never said the world is our peace, our joy, our hope. Jesus is the Christian’s hope, peace, joy.

Christ has only recently commanded my full attention, but already I agree with the eminent French mathematician, Pascal, who wrote, “The Gospel to me is simply irresistible. Being the man I am, full of lust and pride and envy, and malice and hatred and false good, and all accumulated misery — to me the Gospel of the grace of God, and the redemption of Christ, and the regeneration and sanctification of the Holy Spirit, that Gospel is to me simply irresistible, and I cannot understand why it is not equally irresistible to every mortal man born of woman.”

The only explanation I can offer — people do not, will not, stop to consider Jesus. In fact, most of us will do anything to avoid having to stop and consider Jesus. It is a devastating thing to consider Jesus. He strips us of all our pretense, all our illusions about ourselves.

What a thing to find out that Pascal was painting a portrait of us. Of you … of me. “Full of lust and pride and envy, and malice and hatred and false good, and all accumulated misery …”

The Uncomforting of Calvary
It was a shock to me when I found out that I was a sinner and as desperately in need of salvation as the most despised derelict on Skid Row. Oswald Chambers wrote, “The only word that expresses the enormity of sin is ‘Calvary.’”

So few of us who are moral, well‑liked, church‑going people ever “get it,” that in the eyes of God it is just as much sin for us to declare to God that we are going to live our lives our way, as it is to do some overt wrong which everyone can identify as sin.

The “natural” man thoroughly dislikes any talk about the Cross. It’s “uncomforting.” Most of us will do anything to go around Calvary, because it is so painful, so unmasking to pass through. To add to the burden of it, Satan is always at hand to insinuate and suggest to our minds the cruelty of God to smash us, to humiliate us, to bring us to nothing.

But I thank God that He broke my proud and fearful and wrong spirit, and showed me the ineffable worth of Calvary. What a day of rejoicing when a child of God reaches point zero. In the soft light of the shadow of the Cross I began to see dimly what it is all about. That the life of Christ might be formed in me. In me! That I might start living the life He has given me from His everlasting point of view. That I start considering Jesus; not living my life my way.

Without Christ … Fainthearted
No wonder Christianity hasn’t done for the world what it can do and should do. So few Christians grasp what it really means to be a disciple of Christ. Consider Him. He is our only hope. Yes, “consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.”

Many are growing weary and fainthearted today. This is natural. Without Christ in the picture, life does not and cannot add up.

What are the people of our modern world doing? Many are cracking up — mentally, physically and spiritually, while the host of others who are not considering Jesus are trying to forget themselves. Laugh and be merry, forget your problems, is the advice given freely and noisily, completely ignoring the Lord who said to all rest‑less men, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

“Come … come to me.” Here is God in Christ Jesus inviting us to come to Him with our heavy hearts, our broken hearts, our proud hearts — can you imagine having such a friend as Jesus?

Let us consider Him the next time we are weary; the next time we are weary in our bodies or in our minds. The Bible reveals that all things were made by Him. All things go on in Him. All things are held together in Him. All things are to be judged by Him. And all things are to be united in Him!

Consider Him! Can you imagine having such a friend as Jesus? Phillips puts Ephesians 1:9‑12 in this moving language: “God has allowed us to know the secret of His plan, and it is this: He purposes in His Sovereign will that all human history shall be consummated in Christ, that everything that exists in Heaven or earth shall find its perfection and fulfilment in Him. And here is the staggering thing — that in all which will one day belong to Him we have been promised a share …”

Grateful Hearts … Obedient Lives
Once these words take hold of our minds, bodies, spirits, hearts, and souls, we will never be the same. We cannot be the same once we start considering Jesus. It is too much for me to imagine what it is to be a friend of Jesus. It is full of wonder and a question which comes automatically to any grateful heart — how, what can I do to show my Lord that I love and appreciate Him?

Nearly every book in the Bible touches on obedience to God in one way or another. That is the answer. I can best show my gratitude and love to God by obeying Him. “This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). This is my part in maintaining our friendship.

I’ll admit this part frightened me at first. It sounded so hard. And I was right. It is hard, but what worthwhile thing doesn’t demand our all? I am learning that as I grow closer to Him, it is easier to obey Him. Not easy. Easier!

Consider Jesus
I ask you seriously, not as one standing on a spiritual pedestal, but as an unshackled sinner who has received the greatest gift there is — have you ever considered Jesus? Have you considered that He died for you?

A man is never the same after he knows this. Imagine, Christ dying for me. Dying for you. No, I shall never, never quite get over the wonder and mystery of redemption.

We need to keep in mind that it takes the Holy Spirit to convince a man that the thing he loves the best about himself, that is, his own self‑government, is “an abomination in the sight of God.” A man delights in thinking he has “done it” all himself—his self‑realization is the one thing of which Christ is an enemy because its central foundation is independence of God.

When we do not have a deep love in our hearts for Christ, it is pretty certain that we have decided to go it our way. It is true. Many care not at all that Christ died for them. I know, because until recently I was completely indifferent.

I knew Christ had died on a Cross. Most people know it. Certainly all church-people do. What was missing in my knowledge? I had no idea this event which took place so long ago had anything to do with me. Today. That is, until recently.

What a fantastic thing to learn that Christ died for me! It has changed my life completely.  I don’t know why this took me so by surprise, but it did. It shouldn’t be surprising, as this is Christ’s “business” to change men. He makes us over, and I needed it badly. “If a man is in Christ he becomes a new person altogether … everything has become fresh and new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

How many people in your church have a stamp of freshness and newness about them? Look in the mirror — is your face radiant? It should be if you have become a new person in Christ — altogether new — everything fresh and new.

Embrace the Cross
As I look around with my “new” eyes, I find many twentieth-century “Christians” who honestly do not know, or will not accept, the fact that Christ had to die for us. They do not “get it,” that Christianity is all about the Cross of Christ, and that, in a sense, we must go to the Cross, too. He died for us. Yes. He did it all, but we must die, too. Here is the catch — most of us will do anything to avoid having to die—having to die to ourselves!  Someone should write a song entitled “I Like Me the Way I Am!” This is the attitude and spirit of our age, and our churches are full of people whistling (in the dark) this tune.

But once we start learning the foreign language of the Cross — and remember, it is always painful to learn a new language — then, and only then, will His peace, His hope, His joy begin to be a steady part of our living.

We must not confuse Christ’s joy with mere happiness or insipid perpetual grinning, nor must we be ignorant of the fact that Satan is always ready to take our joy the moment we stop considering Jesus. Also we should recognize that there are heights and depths in joy. There are many tears in the life of the “joyful” follower of Jesus Christ.

Listen to what a Christian writer in Japan wrote, “I have spent much of each day for half a lifetime in tears.” And then in the same book, “I have enjoyed a perpetual springtime.” Is this a contradiction? Not at all. This is all part of it.  Tears in the joy. Sometimes joy in the tears. But always Christ in it all.

Good vs. Best
I suppose, actually, there is nothing too terribly wrong with the lives of many Christians today, but there is so little that is positively good. Men and women whose lives have counted for Christ have always given their best. Many of us are unwilling to give up our good things for God’s best.

Mr. Average Churchman today walks into his spacious living room several nights a week and flips on his TV. He is perfectly comfortable. He assures himself that there is nothing wrong with “my looking at this quiz program tonight.” I agree. There is nothing wrong with it.  A man does have to have some recreation. Of course. But what I am trying to point out is that there is so little of what he is doing with his total life that is God’s best. A man who spends fifteen to twenty hours a week watching TV cannot possibly have Christ’s stamp of freshness and newness upon him.

I challenge that person to turn off his TV one of these nights and sit alone in the stillness with his thoughts — ponder a bit that Great Day which is coming when we shall stand before Him, the Righteous Judge, and give an account of what we did and did not do here on earth. It is a hard experience to be still before God. An agonizing time when we dare to expose our shallow lives to His piercing eyes, and for the first time steal a glance at Jesus on the Cross. For you … for me.

Consider Him. You will never be the same once you do. From the moment a man starts to consider Jesus he gets a longing to give his best — to come up higher — to live a more noble life. This man becomes absolutely astounded at all that the Lord has for him to do! And he begins to see dimly that he has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks of all in advancing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, because of his lack of love for His Savior and King.

Killing God’s Plans
I had a letter yesterday from a Chinese friend who was studying to be a missionary. Not anymore. My friend is now working at a secular job.

He wrote, in his quaint way, “I don’t have too many friends. Somebody encouraged me to buy a TV set. Of course, it helps me to kill the time and occupies my mind. It must sound funny to you. Anyhow, this is my life, which is no taste. I need your prayers.”

It didn’t sound “funny” to me — it sounded tragic. I wept. As surely as this precious friend is “killing” time, he is killing God’s plan for his life, and ultimately killing himself, and an unnumbered host he should be ministering to.

My prayer for him is that he will get still — still before God so he can yet hear Him whisper, “Come — come my way.” The way of a disciple of Christ, and not merely a member of some church. The hard way, yet the triumphant way. The way of the Cross which leads home, and which leads to joy; a paradox I can never explain, but am experiencing it — to my joy!

My prayer for all of us is that we will be willing to give up our good things in order to receive God’s best. Listen! God has wonder‑filled plans for each one of us. We need to seek Him, look to Him and listen, so we’ll learn what God is chiseling and grinding us for. Each one of our lives is like a block of marble. We can simply remain an unshapely lump, or we can watch the chips and dust fill the air as God makes something beautiful out of that rough piece of marble.

My heart aches for the people today who are running aimlessly here and there “killing time,” because they have not considered Him whose death on the Cross effectively killed time once and for all, and opened wide the gates to heaven. Come! Enter in. Consider Him.