The Cross Centered Life
This is Good Friday. When I wake up in the morning, I often don't immediately remember what day it is. So I was not thinking about it being Good Friday when I pulled my laptop onto my lap to check my email this morning. But I did wake up thinking about the conversation Todd and I had (about the cross) in the comments section of my last post.
I have read several things in the last few days that I want to share on my blog. So I went into the other room to pick up a specific book and saw another book, "The Cross Centered Life" by C. J. Mahaney, near it. (I highly recommend this book.) I shy away from claiming that God spoke something to me, but I did feel impressed with the words "write more about the cross." It felt like it came out of nowhere. And then I immediately remembered that this is Easter weekend and today is Good Friday. Of course I should write about the cross.
The following quotes are taken from "The Cross Centered Life."
____________________
Each of our lives is centered on something. What's at the center of yours?
Think about it for a moment. What's really the main thing in your life? Only one thing can truly be first in priority; so what's at the top of your list, second to none?
Or let me put it this way: What are you most passionate about? What do you love to talk about? What do you think about most when your mind is free?
Or try this: What is it that defines you? Is it your career? A relationship? Maybe it's your family, or your ministry. It could be some cause or movement, or some political affiliation. Or perhaps your main thing is a hobby or a talent you have, or even your house and possessions.
It could be one of any number of good things -- but when it comes to centering our life, what really qualifies as the one thing God says should be the most important?
THE ONLY ESSENTIAL
Here's how Paul answers that question for us: "Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you...For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins."
This, Paul says, is the main thing. Nothing else -- not even things that are biblical and honorable -- are of equal or greater importance than this: God sent His Son to the cross to bear His wrath for sinners like you and me.
If there's anything in life we should be passionate about, it's the gospel. And I don't mean passionate only about sharing it with others; I mean passionate in thinking about the gospel, reflecting upon it, rejoicing in it, allowing it to color the way we look at the world and all of life.
"The gospel," writes Jerry Bridges, "is not only the most important message in all of history; it is the only essential message in all of history. Yet we allow thousands of professing Christians to live their entire lives without clearly understanding it and experiencing the joy of living in it." Neither you nor I want to be numbered among the believers who live out that tragedy.
That's why our attention must continually be drawn back to what John Stott calls "that great and most glorious of all subjects -- the cross of Christ." In the Scriptures we discover a profound urgency for focusing all we are and everything we do around the gospel of the cross.
OUR CONSTANT DANGER
A concern expressed by D. A. Carson...is well justified: "I fear that the cross, without ever being disowned, is constantly in danger of being dismissed from the central place it must enjoy, by relatively peripheral insights that take on far too much weight. Whenever the periphery is in danger of displacing the center, we are not far removed from idolatry."
Every day we all face the temptation to move away from the gospel, to let it drop from our hands and hearts. Three main tendencies in particular tend to draw us away:
1) Subjectivism, which means basing our view of God on our changing feelings and emotions.
2) Legalism, which means basing our relationship with God on our own performance.
3) Condemnation, which means being more focused on our sin than on God's grace.
...Let me urge you to do whatever it takes to make the gospel your passion. Ask God to change your heart so you can personally affirm for your own life the words of Galatians 6:14 -- "Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."
WE NEVER MOVE ON
But maybe this thought is nagging you: If we as Christians have already come to believe in the gospel -- if we've already received the gift of salvation He purchased for us with His precious blood -- why focus any longer on the cross? Isn't it time to give our full attention to more "mature" matters of living out our faith?
Nope.
Read slowly and listen carefully to one of my favorite quotations: "We never move on from the cross, only into a more profound understanding of the cross." The cross and its meaning aren't something we ever master.
...Too many of us have fumbled the most important truth of the Bible, and therefore we've suffered the consequences.
But it's not too late to change. It's not too late to restate and reestablish the obvious truth as the most important truth in your life -- and to be caught up as never before in wonder over the love and grace of God.
____________________
The subjects I most remember endless teaching on were my perfection, the importance of the ministry, the types and shadows of the tarbernacle and the book of Revelation, which was the center of the gospel taught to me as I grew up, not the cross. I once believed the "deep truths" of the Bible were found in these teachings. But I now see that the love men tried to instill in me for "special knowledge" was actually idolatry, as described above by D. A. Carson. The periphery was displacing the center. And many consequences have followed that error.
We are to lift high the cross of Christ and only the cross of Christ. Our salvation and the power to overcome are found only in the blood of Jesus shed FOR US. No glory goes to us. Our righteousness is HIS righteousness. There is no other righteousness that will ever satisfy the holiness of God. I have shared the following scriptures and comments before on my blog.
"...the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are saved it is the power of God." 1 Corinthians 1:18
I remember when my pastor linked the above scripture with 2 Timothy 3:1-4.
1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
He read these verses from 2 Timothy and then reminded us that the Bible tells us the power of God is the message of the cross. Where THE message is not the cross, there is only a form of godliness.
Again I turn to quotations from "The Cross Centered Life."
____________________
Imagine yourself at Timothy's side as he receives a letter from the apostle Paul -- the letter that will be Paul's last...
With Paul's life drawing to a close, what special insight has God given him to pass on? Timothy's heart pounds as the truth hits him with piercing clarity: There's no new secret revealed here, no previously hidden knowledge, but simply a stirring affirmation of the one truth Paul has lived for daily these past three decades, and soon will die for. It's the same truth for which Timothy, too, must spend himself: the gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
I have read several things in the last few days that I want to share on my blog. So I went into the other room to pick up a specific book and saw another book, "The Cross Centered Life" by C. J. Mahaney, near it. (I highly recommend this book.) I shy away from claiming that God spoke something to me, but I did feel impressed with the words "write more about the cross." It felt like it came out of nowhere. And then I immediately remembered that this is Easter weekend and today is Good Friday. Of course I should write about the cross.
The following quotes are taken from "The Cross Centered Life."
____________________
Each of our lives is centered on something. What's at the center of yours?
Think about it for a moment. What's really the main thing in your life? Only one thing can truly be first in priority; so what's at the top of your list, second to none?
Or let me put it this way: What are you most passionate about? What do you love to talk about? What do you think about most when your mind is free?
Or try this: What is it that defines you? Is it your career? A relationship? Maybe it's your family, or your ministry. It could be some cause or movement, or some political affiliation. Or perhaps your main thing is a hobby or a talent you have, or even your house and possessions.
It could be one of any number of good things -- but when it comes to centering our life, what really qualifies as the one thing God says should be the most important?
THE ONLY ESSENTIAL
Here's how Paul answers that question for us: "Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you...For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins."
This, Paul says, is the main thing. Nothing else -- not even things that are biblical and honorable -- are of equal or greater importance than this: God sent His Son to the cross to bear His wrath for sinners like you and me.
If there's anything in life we should be passionate about, it's the gospel. And I don't mean passionate only about sharing it with others; I mean passionate in thinking about the gospel, reflecting upon it, rejoicing in it, allowing it to color the way we look at the world and all of life.
"The gospel," writes Jerry Bridges, "is not only the most important message in all of history; it is the only essential message in all of history. Yet we allow thousands of professing Christians to live their entire lives without clearly understanding it and experiencing the joy of living in it." Neither you nor I want to be numbered among the believers who live out that tragedy.
That's why our attention must continually be drawn back to what John Stott calls "that great and most glorious of all subjects -- the cross of Christ." In the Scriptures we discover a profound urgency for focusing all we are and everything we do around the gospel of the cross.
OUR CONSTANT DANGER
A concern expressed by D. A. Carson...is well justified: "I fear that the cross, without ever being disowned, is constantly in danger of being dismissed from the central place it must enjoy, by relatively peripheral insights that take on far too much weight. Whenever the periphery is in danger of displacing the center, we are not far removed from idolatry."
Every day we all face the temptation to move away from the gospel, to let it drop from our hands and hearts. Three main tendencies in particular tend to draw us away:
1) Subjectivism, which means basing our view of God on our changing feelings and emotions.
2) Legalism, which means basing our relationship with God on our own performance.
3) Condemnation, which means being more focused on our sin than on God's grace.
...Let me urge you to do whatever it takes to make the gospel your passion. Ask God to change your heart so you can personally affirm for your own life the words of Galatians 6:14 -- "Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."
WE NEVER MOVE ON
But maybe this thought is nagging you: If we as Christians have already come to believe in the gospel -- if we've already received the gift of salvation He purchased for us with His precious blood -- why focus any longer on the cross? Isn't it time to give our full attention to more "mature" matters of living out our faith?
Nope.
Read slowly and listen carefully to one of my favorite quotations: "We never move on from the cross, only into a more profound understanding of the cross." The cross and its meaning aren't something we ever master.
...Too many of us have fumbled the most important truth of the Bible, and therefore we've suffered the consequences.
But it's not too late to change. It's not too late to restate and reestablish the obvious truth as the most important truth in your life -- and to be caught up as never before in wonder over the love and grace of God.
____________________
The subjects I most remember endless teaching on were my perfection, the importance of the ministry, the types and shadows of the tarbernacle and the book of Revelation, which was the center of the gospel taught to me as I grew up, not the cross. I once believed the "deep truths" of the Bible were found in these teachings. But I now see that the love men tried to instill in me for "special knowledge" was actually idolatry, as described above by D. A. Carson. The periphery was displacing the center. And many consequences have followed that error.
We are to lift high the cross of Christ and only the cross of Christ. Our salvation and the power to overcome are found only in the blood of Jesus shed FOR US. No glory goes to us. Our righteousness is HIS righteousness. There is no other righteousness that will ever satisfy the holiness of God. I have shared the following scriptures and comments before on my blog.
"...the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are saved it is the power of God." 1 Corinthians 1:18
I remember when my pastor linked the above scripture with 2 Timothy 3:1-4.
1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
He read these verses from 2 Timothy and then reminded us that the Bible tells us the power of God is the message of the cross. Where THE message is not the cross, there is only a form of godliness.
Again I turn to quotations from "The Cross Centered Life."
____________________
Imagine yourself at Timothy's side as he receives a letter from the apostle Paul -- the letter that will be Paul's last...
With Paul's life drawing to a close, what special insight has God given him to pass on? Timothy's heart pounds as the truth hits him with piercing clarity: There's no new secret revealed here, no previously hidden knowledge, but simply a stirring affirmation of the one truth Paul has lived for daily these past three decades, and soon will die for. It's the same truth for which Timothy, too, must spend himself: the gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Comments
Love the quotes from Mahaneys book. I have not had the opportunity to read "The Cross Centered Life" yet, but have read tons of incredible quotes from it.
It is amazing how much a stumbling block the cross is and how it is foolishness to those who are perishing as the bible says. It was for me as well, thank you God for saving me for your glory.
I glory only in the Cross.
Happy Easter to all.
Todd E.