At life’s single greatest crossroad …

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Do you remember making “blanket forts” in the living room as a kid?

It was a place you could take your rather sizable imagination, a few toys or a coloring book, and escape from the world.

Of course, at that age we weren’t “escaping” from much, more like creating our own “special place” to unleash our imaginations for a while before returning to the world governed by adults.

I’ve noticed lately on social media sites some friends posting a picture of a blanket fort with a caption that said something like, “I no longer want to be an adult. If you need me I will be in my blanket fort … coloring.”

Life is much tougher as an adult because it comes loaded with decisions and responsibilities from which there really isn’t an escape.

As we enter into Easter week and recall Christ’s journey to the cross, we’re reminded of a tough decision Jesus faced, one which reflects the single greatest crossroads you and I will ever face. Jesus loved the Father, and He loved us; He wanted to please the Father and save us, but He didn’t want to have to do it through the cross …

“39 Then, accompanied by the disciples, Jesus left the upstairs room and went as usual to the Mount of Olives. 40 There he told them, ‘Pray that you will not give in to temptation.’ 41 He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, 42 ‘Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.’ 43 Then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him. 44 He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood,” Luke 22:39-44.
 Leaving the splendor of heaven, wrapping Himself in flesh, and coming into this world as a human being, all for the purpose of seeking and saving the lost, was an easy decision for Jesus. It was a decision made by the Trinity before anything was even created.
“4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God
decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to
himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave
him great pleasure,” Ephesians 1:4-5.
But a route through the cross?
To be beaten, spat upon, and nailed to a crude cross by His own creation? 
The holy sacrificed for sinners?
Death for those who didn’t deserve life?
Going through with that plan was a tough one, even for Jesus, who now found Himself at the single greatest crossroad you and I will ever face: to do the will of the Father, or to do what we prefer.
Some have written that it wasn’t nails that held Jesus to the cross, it was His love for us. That’s not accurate. It was some very large nails violently pounded through His hands and feet that attached Him to the cross. His love for us was a key motivating factor for Him to face such agony. But what really brought Jesus out of the Garden and up onto that cross was His overwhelming desire to do the will of the Father. 
Nothing was more important to Jesus than doing the will of His Father. For Him, there was no cost too great to pay in order to please and obey the Father. 
That’s the crossroad we all face: will we, like Jesus, opt to die to self and choose to do the will of our heavenly Father? 
What have you decided?
Scotty