The Cross

April 7th, 2009

It is so easy for us even as Christians to overlook the vital importance of the cross.  The death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, crucified on a cross is the event of history, and has so many implications.  

The cross was the very reason why Jesus Christ came. He was not a  martyr, his death was not an accident.  He came with the specific intention of becoming sin for us. The only ground on which we can be forgiven is through the cross of Christ.  

By concentrating on the love and mercy of God, it is so easy to miss the significance of the cross.  We can overlook the effects, the shame and guilt and doom that sin brings.  No one is ever united with Christ  until he is willing to relinquish sin, and his whole way of looking at things.   I remember the truth of this dawning on me some time after I had committed my life to following Jesus. I had a revelation of the sinfulness of sin, the awful nature of pride and how much God hates it.  I had a new understanding of why Christ had to die.  At that point I asked again for Christ to forgive and cover my sin, but I also surrendered any hold on possessions, career ambitions, selfish relationships and selfish dreams, with a commitment to willing obedience.  

What a challenge, one that I can’t meet in my own strength, but the cross means then I am not only saved from hell and made fit for heaven, but the old me has also died with Christ on the cross, and I have a new power within.  With the seed of God inside, I am now a new creation.  I have a new dispensation, an innate desire not to sin, but to please God.  

The greatest note that ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was the words from the cross: ‘It is finished’.  

David Thatcher
 

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