"If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily," etc. Luke 9:2323And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. (Luke 9:23). "When the time was come that He should be received up, He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem." In Isaiah, "I set My face like a flint." He was accomplishing His Father's will here, as in all His course. Redemption must be accomplished through the cross. He "learned... obedience by the things which He suffered." It was the same obedience as at the beginning, when He was coming among them with "Blessed are the poor," etc.—more painful, and of course He felt the difference; but still He goes in the same blessed spirit and earnestness.
Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, etc. He had found it His meat to do the will of Him that sent Him. There was joy to Him in this, but in the cup of wrath which He was going to drink there was no joy. He had met with scorn here, smiting there, rejection all through, but nothing like this cup; and therefore He cried, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me," etc. Christ proved His perfectness, for He felt what it was to be "made sin," etc. His holy nature shrank from it; yet there was the same quiet, steady, patient obedience, for "He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem," as all through. He knows His Father's will and He does it. He sets His face there, where His Father's will is to be done, not looking to this side or to that, but there—Jerusalem.