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| An Everyday Cross
1 Corinthians 1:18
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
The cross.
What comes to mind when you think of the cross?
Jesus.
How about ourselves?
Do we ever think of ourselves in connection with the cross?
This verse in 1 Corinthians made me think about this today:
In what way is the cross the power of God in my life?
“It is to the Cross that the
Christian is challenged to follow his Master: no path of redemption can make a
detour around it.”
The cross is the beginning of salvation and new life in Christ.
But God intends that the cross be His power in our lives.
What does that look like on a daily basis?
As I thought about that I remembered something I'd read once in a Tozer book.
You know how a thought just kind of hangs out on the edge of memory, but you can't really get your hands on it?
So I dug out the Tozer books and voila---there it was in The Pursuit of God.
In chapter 3, Removing the Veil, Tozer says,
"It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free."
His prayer at the end of the chapter includes this request,
"Show us how to die that we may rise again in newness of life. Rend the veil of self-life from the top down as Thou didst rend the veil of the Temple. We would draw near in full assurance of faith. We would dwell with Thee in daily experience here on this earth so that we may be accustomed to the glory when we enter Thy heaven to dwell with Thee there."
The cross is never the end.
It's the beginning of new life.
Jesus endure it looking forward to the joy that was set before him.
What joy is before you?
What part of self stands between you and that joy?
Let the cross be the power of God in your life that moves you past self and on toward joy.
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There are said to be thirty thousand promises made to the child of God, but they are of no more value to us than statements in the newspaper if we do not personally appropriate them. J. Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Maturity PROMISE #1 I came across this sentence about two weeks ago and it has resurfaced in my thoughts again and again. Yesterday I calculated that if I found 4.5 promises every single day I could find all 30,000 if I lived to be 80 years old. How many promises support our lives every single day? I don't know the number, but wouldn't be surprised if it were in the hundreds. Promises that reveal God's: PERSON PLAN PRESENCE POWER PROVISION PURPOSES PROTECTION PATIENCE There are literally thousands of promises that reveal His NATURE, LOVE, GRACE, MERCY, and FORGIVENESS. We, His children by faith, are supported and graced by the promises God has given us. Every day I want to find as many promises as possible.
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