Prayerfully Poetic

A Collection of Prayerful Poems by Tim McGee

Those Who Lift High but do not Carry

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Behold they who lift the cross
but refuse to carry
the Christ who hung upon it.

Beware those who praise the Savior
who fled to Egypt,
yet despise the immigrant.

They pretend to worship
a brown-skinned Messiah,
yet judge their neighbor
by the color of his skin.

They call themselves blessed,
while storing treasures
the poor prayed for.

They let their hands and hymns rise,
but mercy does not lift within them.

Beloved Church,
the Gospel
was never meant
to protect our comfort.

It was given
to crucify our pride.

For Christ will not ask
how well we defended
our nation,
our wealth,
or our tribe.

He will ask
whether we recognized Him
in the hungry,
the stranger,
the forgotten.

And many who cried,
“Lord, Lord,”
will discover

they never truly
knew His heart.

2 responses to “Those Who Lift High but do not Carry”

  1. This is a needed word. It names what so often goes unspoken: that it is entirely possible to lift high the symbols of Christ while refusing the actual life of Christ. Your poem exposes that gap with clarity and mercy—mercy, because truth-telling is mercy when the soul is drifting.

    The lines cut in the best way. They remind us that the Cross is not a badge of belonging but a summons to die to the tribal comforts we baptize. It’s sobering to realize how easily we defend what Christ never asked us to defend, and how rarely we carry what He commanded us to carry. Pride is a quiet tyrant; it disguises itself as zeal, patriotism, even worship.

    Your call back to the heart of Jesus—the hungry, the stranger, the forgotten—lands with weight. It’s the kind of weight that wakes people up. If we do not recognize Him in the ones He identifies with, then our hymns rise but our hearts do not.

    Thank you for writing something that refuses to let the Church settle for admiration of Christ without imitation of Christ. May we be people who not only lift the Cross, but actually follow the One who hung upon it.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. dudeinthepewministries99dfe86cba Avatar
      dudeinthepewministries99dfe86cba

      Thanks, brother. May we live as Christ, for the glory of God!

      Liked by 1 person

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