Baggage

 "At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the Light, and the burden of my sin rolled away." Isaac Watts

I've never really enjoyed the experience of flying, and I enjoy the procedure of checking in my baggage even less. I don't know anyone who does. Checking our baggage can be aggravating and even unpleasant. It is far more so when we are confronted with all the emotional and spiritual baggage we are carrying in our lives. It is so because we tend to want to hold onto it. Christ calls us "check our baggage in" at His cross. We want to carry it on board our journey and relationship with Him, and so indirectly, with everyone we come into contact with. He directs us to bring it, and leave it, at His cross. The first choice causes us ongoing and ever deepening harm. The second, brings us freedom. His freedom. Yet we're prone to continue to make the first. Why?

I have seen and experienced the havoc my own baggage has created in my life. I have seen what others baggage has done in theirs. Not just once, but many times over. We keep carrying it, and as we do, it increases, because our baggage will intrude into every aspect of our lives. Into every relationship. It will end up defining us. It will become our identity. Satan will delight in it, and with every failed relationship, every disastrous experience, he will add another piece of worthless "luggage" to the pile. We hate it, but at the same time, we cling to it. We're captive to our baggage, and it's killing us. Emotionally, mentally, spiritually.....literally.

Why do we go on like this? Part of it is because we are so invested in our baggage through anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness, that we can't see any possibility of ever being without it. To let it go means we have to let go of all our grudges and deeply rooted desires for getting even. Or, we nurse the wounds that life has brought us. These are what keep us imprisoned, and they are what sabotage every relationship we enter into. We, and they, never become what we hope for. We end up grieving that, but we continue to hold on to our baggage. Let me ask; are you ready to check your baggage, all of your baggage, at the foot of His cross? Are you ready for the lyrics of Watt's great and powerful hymn to become your reality? Your testimony? He has always been ready that it would be. All you need do is come to His cross. Burdens, and all baggage, really are lifted at Calvary.

Do you hear His still small voice inviting you to come? To come with every piece of baggage you've accumulated in this life. To bring them all, and lay them at His feet, at His cross.....and be free. His promise is real. Burdens are lifted at Calvary, at the cross. All we need to do is come. Come with our baggage, all of it. He calls us. Do we come? And here's a beautiful truth. Unlike at the airport, we never have to pick up that baggage again. It disappears, and in this case, we rejoice.

Blessings,
Pastor O