The Power of Love

So, it's been awhile since I posted. I'm not completely sure why. I've limited my time on the computer somewhat but that's not really it. Anyway, here I am and what I want to talk about is one of many things I've read in the study I'm doing, A Call To Die, that really convicted me. This particular day was called, "The Cross: Are You Beyond It?" David Nasser said so many things that day that really got to me. I am so guilty of actually thinking that I am beyond the salvation stuff and need to move on to deeper things." Ouch. I know now, or have been reminded, that nothing is deeper than the cross. Really, what could be deeper than the Lord of the Universe, the Creator of heaven and earth, leaving heaven and becoming a man for the sole purpose of loving me enough to die for me and for you a death so horrendous that he actually sweat drops of blood in the hours before in an effort to come to terms with it? What could be deeper than a love that said, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing" in the midst of great suffering? The cross was a means of torture and death for the one person who deserved it the least for those of us who deserved it the most.

I'm one of those people who have used crosses to decorate my home, I wear crosses around my neck, I've been known to doodle crosses. I do not ever again want to trivialize the cross and what it meant then and still means to this day. Nasser says of the cross: "It defines our identity as children of God; it explains how we can be disconnected from sin; it gives us hope that we have a future resurrection; it gives us the example of how much to obey the Father; it shows us how much we are forgiven and how much we can forgive those who hurt us; and it measures the depth of God's gret love for us." There is so much more but that makes the point. He says and I agree that "we never get any deeper than the cross. Everything we say and do needs to be filtered through the sacrifice Christ made on the cross. At every crossroads in life we need to not necessarily ask "What would Jesus do?" but more accurately, 'What has he already done on the cross?' and 'Will my decision honor the cross?'"

Man, does that hit you square in the head? It certainly did for me. He quoted Charles Spurgeon saying, "If you sin, sin boldly. Every time you sin, you are saying that sin is worth more to you than the cross of Jesus Christ." Spurgeon was not advocating sin, he was just trying to say that when we are very aware of our sin we can become very aware of God's forgiveness; that if we sin boldly we will be slapped in the face with the absurdity of what we are choosing in light of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross. It all comes back to the cross. We may get all excited about spiritual gifts or the manifestations of Holy Spirit, or all up in arms about worship styles or any number of other things that distract us from one thing. But it all comes back to the cross and the love that led Jesus there and kept him there until his life was drained totally out of him. Without it and without the power that resurrected Jesus from the dead we're all just floudering around out here.

The cross. It's way more than clip art. It's more than a decoration for the wall or a cool charm for your necklace or bracelet. It is life. It is love. It is suffering. It is forgiveness. It is grace. It is mercy. It is an image that stirs up in my inner being extreme, intense gratitude. When I think where I would be without it, I am shaken. With it, I am trembling. I hope I never look at a cross again without trembling, without loving, without forgiving, without thankfulness.

Father, thank you for the great sacrifice of your one and only son, Jesus. Thank you for loving me enough to send him here to live in this world and then to die. Jesus, thank you for your willingness to love me that much. I cannot imagine that kind of love but I am so grateful for it. Holy Spirit, thank you for raising Jesus from the dead and setting me free. I am humbled. I am in awe. I am grateful.