The cross of Christ is an event, not a piece of wood shaped by Roman hands to inflict pain and humiliation.
Jesus took the cross unto Himself...
He gave His life, and in the giving He opened to way for everyone to have real life and real relationship with a God who was separated from us by our own sin.
You can downplay the act of Christ's death...
You can even ignore it and say it never happened.
But you cannot receive it unto salvation and then continue to live as the world does.
This is the dangerous slippery slope that exists today, and I believe that some not only condone such behavior, but pass it on to others.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book Cost Of Discipleship stated this view.
"Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principal, a system. It means the forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian "concept" of God. An intellectual assent to the idea is held (mbb- and believed) to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins.
The church offers the world a cheap covering for its sins. No contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. Instead of following Christ, let the Christian enjoy the consolations of His grace.
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without perseonal confession."
The cross is the ultimate place of truth.
When we stand before it, our very being is laid bare before God.
We can hide nothing....
We can either acknowledge what God has revealed, confess and repent and receive...
or we can be stiff necked and stubborn.
When I was saved, it took me some time to come to the realization that following Christ demands that I give up everything. "You don't mean everything do you?"
Yes, I do...
Not so much the material possession I own (even though that might be up for grabs at some point). But the inner stirrings of my spirit and soul.
I surrender what I want....
I give up my desires....
I lay aside my selfish plans...
I unlearn all that I thought about God and His ways...
I throw down my taste for the world and anything associated with it.
Sounds pretty radical..
Well, it is.
I will close with one more Bonhoeffer quote. It is one that I keep before me at all times to remind myself of the price that Christ paid for all sinners.
"The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is theman who has left all to follow Christ."
Think on this today...
God on you...
mbb
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