March 23, 2007
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Project 180
"The cross is not controversial for any other reason than it demands those who embrace it to enter death". These words have been resonating through my thoughts the last few days. I believe I was taught grace before I was taught the cross, and the danger there is I never learned grace. I learned an idea, a thought process, a word that has long since been distorted to mean something far less than the great thing that it is.
I find the message of the cross to be one that is no longer given much thought. Only in the cross do we find that we must enter into the death of Christ to be children of God and new creations. It is hear that we find the faith God has given us come to life. Here we make the choice to either discount what He has said, or to truly believe that "If any man" would follow Him, he must take up his cross. It is not so much a call to die, as it is a call to realize those in Christ have already died, and they are to remember this death by daily taking up their cross. In this beginning they find life, and find it more abundantly.
I believe the cross is nothing more than love, and nothing less than God's greatest gift. We find the demonstration of His love in the death of His son, and if we would embrace it we find the meaning of laying down our lives for our friends. Love does not demand this, but the nature of one who loves does demand the sacrifice of laying down your life. It is a compulsion that cries out and refuses to be silenced.
It is only after you experience the cross that your faith is made alive. Only in faith can the love of God transcend your understanding so that you enter into the reality of said love. And only when you have entered the reality of God's love will begin to see the truth of God's grace.
I cannot say how each person recognizes His death with Christ, for the Father deals with all of His children justly yet differently. All I can say is that each child must come to that place where they find that the cross of Christ was not only His death, but their own, and the resurrection of Christ was not only His, but all of God's children to a new life hidden in the resurrected Jesus.
Take it for what you will.
Comments (2)
So true. I've been taking a class on Romans this semester and we were talking about how Paul says that we are united with Christ both in His death and in His resurrection. I thought it was pretty cool and true what my professor said: that we are always trying to measure how much power it takes to live a good life (the life of the "new man") when in reality, it takes as much power as it takes to raise a dead man to life. We could never look at a dead body on the floor and say rise and have it rise on our own power. It just can't happen. In the same way, we will never have enough power on our own to live like a "new man".
Good stuff,
And, mad extra props for knowing it was a Princess Bride quote, hehe
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