I Corinthians 2:2
For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
I have shared on numerous occasions that the verse above is the very foundation of everything I believe, and everything I teach. Life ends at the cross, and life begins at the cross. We trade one way of living for another.
The cross of Christ is the great equalizer as we all stand before it as sinners.
Destined to an eternal separation if we choose to reject God's call to salvation. To be honest with you, the cross has somehow fallen out of favor. Some see this cross as being judgmental and cruel. Some see it a divisive and something that separates one from another. Of course those who see the cross in this manner believe that the love of God triumphs sin. I believe that. But God's love for us will not excuse our sin. Not after He has established a way to be free, clear and clean of the one thing that keeps us from Him. Oh, He never stops loving us...He never stops chasing us...and the call to relationship is a forever call. But it is the power of sin that motivates me to run from God.
As I wrote earlier, the cross of Christ is the great equalizer in that it reveals our hearts to show us the extent of our own sin. But the cross of Christ is a great spiritual magnet that can lift us up and out of the darkness and death that sin holds for us. On that cross, Jesus opened the way for us to be justified by God, sanctified by God, regenerated by God. How? He was the propitiation for our sin. In other words, Jesus became the means through which God's anger against sin could be satisfied.
In dealing with people who are trying to break free of addiction, they have an incredibly hard time believing in a God who could do for them what they could not do for themselves. They have a hard time accepting the fact that this God they have heard about all their lives, would and could break the bondage that has held them in place. Now couple that belief with the example that the church gives sometimes, and you've got a dangerous, damaging combination that is hard to break through. I'm not saying that every church has damaged people spiritually and emotionally, but I do know that from time to time the church is less than what God desires us to be. Because of our lack of compassion....because of our religious language....and let's be honest here...because of our pharisee-attitude, we have hurt those who come looking for this Jesus we proclaim.
That is why on Saturday nights at Vineyard ReCovery, when I teach on what the cross really is about, I want it to be seen as the ultimate symbol of love and life. I want those whose eyes are dull, whose hearts are hard, and whose ears are deaf, to be touched by God's Holy Spirit and see the cross as the means to new life that has escaped them in the past. I desperately want everyone who comes through the door on Saturday night to meet my Jesus.
Why?
Because the journey and life He will take you on is beyond comprehension.
John 12:32
And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself."
God on you...
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