Thursday, March 28, 2013

On the Wearing or Display of Crosses

"To wear material crosses as an ornament, to place material crosses on churches and tombs, all this is cheap and easy work, and entails no trouble. But to have Christ's cross in our hearts, to carry Christ's cross in our daily walk, to know the fellowship of his sufferings, to be made conformable to his death, to have crucified affections, and live crucified lives—all this needs self-denial and Christians of this stamp are few and far between. Yet this, we may be sure, is the only cross-bearing and cross-carrying that does good in the world. The times require less of the cross outwardly and more of the cross within."

-Bishop J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on John, p. 214 (written over a hundred years ago)