|
| |
| Section: Basic Christian Living:
courses for new Christians |
|
Growing in God |
|
6. Crucified With Christ: |
|
|
The Cross in Everyday Living |
Carrying
your Cross
Luke
14:27
'Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be
my disciple.'
Today, the cross of Jesus is
for many just a nice Christian symbol worn round people's necks
on a chain. But the cross was really a grim place where our Lord
was cruelly murdered outside Jerusalem 2000 years ago. Crucifixion
was marked by shame, weakness and death, and for
you to 'carry your cross' means partaking of all three. 1. Shame. A condemned man carrying his cross
through the crowd to the place of execution was laughed at, jeered
at and spat upon before being stripped naked and hoisted up for
all to see. Jesus endured that for you.
|
 | Carrying your cross means
that you'll be willing to experience some shame for him when
people laugh at your faith. It's what Paul calls 'the offence
of the cross' (Galatians 5:11). |
2.
Weakness. Crucifixion
put its victims into a place of total weakness and helplessness.
Jesus 'was crucified in weakness' (2 Corinthians 13:4).
|
 |
| Carrying your cross means
becoming weak, in the sense that you'll realise the hopelessness
of your own efforts to live the Christian life and so come to
depend fully on the Lord. |
3. Death. The cross didn't just mean torture,
it meant death. No-one survived crucifixion, not even Jesus,
who 'became obedient to death—even death on a cross' (Philippians
2:8).
| Carrying your cross means
dying to your own desires and, like Jesus, putting God's will
and the welfare of other people above your own (Matthew 26:39). |
Salvation:
past, present and future
|
 |
Your salvation has three aspects—past,
present and future—and the cross concerns all three.
| Salvation has a past
aspect. Just as the crucifixion is a past event, so you can say
with confidence that when you put your trust in Jesus you were
saved. Christians rightly say things like, 'I was saved as a
result of doing an Alpha course.' Paul agrees: 'It is by grace
you have been saved, through faith' (Ephesians 2:8).
|
|
This is salvation from the
penalty of sin, namely, God's judgment. You need never
fear having to face his judgment when you die, because Christ
has borne it already on your behalf. Because of the cross you
are safe—you have been saved.
| Salvation
also has a future aspect. One day, when Jesus returns,
you will be saved from the very presence of sin
(Revelation 21:23, 27). This is what Paul means when he says,
'our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed' (Romans
13:11). |
This, too, is because of the
cross. Its blessings for you are not just in the past but extend
into the future, guaranteeing that you will escape the presence
of sin in the age to come.
| In between, salvation has
a present aspect: you are being saved (1 Corinthians
1:18). This is a process of being saved day by day from the power
of sin so that you can live in victory. |
The present aspect is the most
important one for you right now, because that's where you are.
So let's see what it means to live by the cross day by day. But
first we'll look at these three aspects in tabular form to help
make them clear.
|
| I WAS saved… |
I
AM BEING saved… |
I WILL BE saved… |
| …from the PENALTY of
sin… |
…from the POWER of sin… |
…from the PRESENCE of
sin… |
| …when I put my faith
in Jesus |
…day by day |
…when Jesus returns |
Crucified
with Christ
Galatians
2:20
'I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live,
but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by
faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.'
This amazing statement explains
the role of the cross in your everyday life. Paul, who wrote
it, is saying that his old, pre-Christian life came to an end
and that he's now living a new, resurrection life 'by faith in
the Son of God.' This is to be your experience, too. The cross,
rightly understood and applied, does four things for you:
1.
The cross breaks sin's grip on you
|
|
Since the bearing of your sin cost Jesus
so much, you naturally want to stay as far away from sin as possible.
Temptation will always be around, but you can rise above it.
Suppose a man is an alcoholic.
Whenever drink is available he just has to have it. Then he dies.
You can take a bottle of whisky to the morgue and stick it under
his nose, but he won't show any interest now because he's dead.
|
 |
In the same way, you were a
sucker for sin. But death has taken place: you've been 'crucified
with Christ', spiritually speaking. Your old life came to an
end when you were baptised as a believer in him. This doesn't
mean that, like the corpse in the morgue, you're immune to temptation.
But you can remind yourself in moments of temptation that your
life is now a resurrection life:
Romans
6:3-4, 6-7, 11-14 'All of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus
were baptised into his death? We were therefore buried with him
through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was
raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too
may live a new life…we know that our old self was
crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away
with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because
anyone who has died has been freed from sin…In the same
way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in
Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body
so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts
of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather
offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from
death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments
of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because
you are not under law, but under grace.'
'Count yourselves dead to sin,' says Paul. That is,
act as if you were literally dead and unresponsive to
temptation. Death has, in fact, taken place. It was Christ's
death, of course, not strictly yours. But as a Christian you
are united with him and, in that sense, his death was also yours.
2. The cross
brings God's strength out of your weakness
2 Corinthians
13:4
'He was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God's power. Likewise,
we are weak in him, yet by God's power we will live with him
to serve you.'
Jesus was crucified in weakness,
but he rose again in strength. The two are connected: he couldn't
have risen from the dead if he hadn't first suffered and died.
There is a principle here that
applies also to you: you can't be truly strong until you become
weak! This means adopting a positive attitude towards everything
that God allows to come your way to make you weak.
A Christian man felt called
to preach, but he had a terrible stutter. He prayed hard that
God would remove it, but he didn't. So instead of giving up the
idea of preaching, he decided to start anyway. His stuttering
was difficult for both him and his listeners to cope with. But
that way, there's no way he could take the credit for the results.
No-one could say they were because of his way with words and
his perfect diction. It just had to be God at work through him—and
it was.
You, too, need to stop relying
on your natural personality, skills and abilities and learn to
rely totally on the power of God. Jesus said, 'Apart from me
you can do nothing' (John 15:5), so anything that reminds you
of your own helplessness is to be welcomed.
Paul learnt this lesson. He
was privileged to have outstanding revelations from the Lord,
but he also suffered what he calls 'a thorn in my flesh'. First,
he wanted it removed, but then came to see it as the cross at
work in his life, taking him from weakness to power:
2 Corinthians
12:7-10
'To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly
great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a
messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with
the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My
grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect
in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly
about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That
is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults,
in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I
am weak, then I am strong.'
3.
The cross makes you fruitful
|
 |
John
12:24 'I
tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground
and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it
produces many seeds.'
Here, Jesus is talking about
his forthcoming death. Only by yielding to the cross could he
multiply his life in the millions of people who have since believed
in him, including you.
|
The same applies
to you. If you're to be spiritually fruitful you must be willing
to 'die' and say goodbye to self-centredness, pride, love of
attention, ulterior motives-and anything else that panders to
the old, sinful nature. You won't fuss and complain if no-one
seems to notice the serving you've been quietly doing. Instead,
you'll rejoice, because the Lord knows about it and its his approval
that matters. It's that kind of serving that will make you fruitful.
4. The cross
is the only path to glory
'Glory' means honour, splendour
and everything that's wonderful. It's all those marvellous features
that go with the presence of God.
As a Christian, you'll enjoy
the future glory of the age to come, when you'll be in the Lord's
presence for ever. But you can also experience that glory to
some extent here and now as you carry your cross. Carrying it
may well mean enduring scoffing, persecution or discrimination
because of your faith. Peter mentions both the future and present
aspects of glory:
1 Peter
4:13-14
'Rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so
that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you
are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed,
for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.'
Your temptation will be to
shortcut this process and win glory some other way. Jesus faced
the same temptation to bypass the cross. The devil offered him
all the kingdoms of the world and their glory if he would just
worship him (Luke 4:5-7). Jesus resisted, knowing that one day
they'd all be his anyway—but only via the cross:
Philippians
2:8-10
'He humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death
on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and
gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow.'
The cross is still the only
path to glory. So live fully for Jesus and bravely endure the
scorn of those who have no time for him. Keeping an eye on the
glory will sustain you through the sufferings of the cross, just
as it did for Jesus:
Hebrews
12:2-3
'Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our
faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross,
scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne
of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful
men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.'
-------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
