January 2016

WE MEET AT THE CROSS

       There was an entrepreneur who was extremely religious as well as being highly successful in his business.  Merchandise was being sold and traded, and the cash register was busily ringing up high totals every day.  He felt he had made his niche in society, because he could afford an expensive team of horses, and a beautiful carriage to transport him to the Temple each Sabbath day.  People in the congregation would stare as he walked in and seated himself in the front row of the synagogue with the other members of the local top society.  He was contented with his current status, except one thing had been bothering him, and he asked the Rabbi about that.  He knew that he was always very careful about obeying the commandments, but he thought there must be something more that God must require of him.  However, his Rabbi assured him that he was doing just fine, and there will surely be a place for him in Abraham's bosom when he departs this life.                                                                                                                                                                                                           

        But he heard about this amazing prophet that had been healing the sick and raising the dead, and preaching a message of assurance.  He thought maybe he could meet this man and if he agrees with what the Rabbi told him, he would be able to rest assured and confident that all will be well with his soul.  So one day he heard that this Prophet Jesus was in town, and after searching diligently, he found where He was and went running up to meet Him.  He inquired of Jesus what requirements must he fulfill in order to be assured of eternal life.  He boasted to the Lord that he surely kept all the commandments, but wanted to know if God would require more than that from a person to enter into eternal life.  Jesus loved him for his diligence in trying to please God and for his efforts to abide by all the law of Moses.  However, Jesus told him (in Mark 10:21 KJV), "One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven; and come, take up your cross and follow Me."  This man was sad and very grieved at this saying.  He owned much property, a business, a wealthy place in the community and a large bank account.  He thought to himself that no way was he about to part with any of them.  He was always taught that just going to synagogue and giving ten percent of his income was buying him a seat in Paradise, but Jesus was telling him that was not all there was to it.  God requires your all in complete surrender, because without faith it is impossible to please God.  God was looking to see if he had the faith to be saved (Hebrews 11:6).  The man knew he had to decide whether to believe Jesus or his Rabbi.  In his heart he knew that Jesus was right, but the price was too high to pay in order to get into Paradise.  And so he turned and walked away sadly and decided he wanted to hold onto what he had in this world, and take his chance on eternity.  After all, he thought, Jesus only has a few followers that had given all to be His followers.  The majority of people must be right, and they aren't following Jesus; so therefore  Jesus must be wrong--the masses most certainly can't be wrong.  If so, only a few will make it into Heaven.  But God is a loving, forgiving God, and He will certainly have mercy on the majority, if they are wrong by not following Jesus.                                                                                                                                    

          But I'm sure that those words of Jesus were still reverberating in his ears as he departed from the Lord's presence, "One thing you lack...take up your cross and follow Me."  Paul, like Jesus, is also telling us the importance of that cross in the life of the true believer in Colossians 1:20-21, when he reminds us of our former life of disobedience to God and how our allegiance was to our lustful fleshly desires.  And as he says, we were enemies of God in our minds; but now, Jesus has reconciled us and made peace between God and ourselves, and all this He accomplished thorugh the blood of His cross.  How blessed we are today to have the exact same assurance that Paul had and wrote to us in Colossians 2:1, when he declared that in Christ lives all the fullness of the Godhead.  And then he goes on to explain that before we knew Christ we were dead in sin and living a Godless life; and then Jesus blotted out all of the sins on our slate and nailed them to His cross.  How precious, then, is the cross of our precious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.  That is why for over two thousand years that cross has identified Christians by wearing jewelry in the shape of a cross-- and the same symbol is on Bible covers and book covers, and has identified churches and religions that were affiliated with Christianity.  Paul writes in Colossians 1:20-21, that it is through the cross of Christ that men and women have been drawn out of the world to surrender their lives to Christ.                                                                                                                                                                                         In Ephesians 2:16, Paul explains how the Heavenly Father, through Christ's cross, has broken down the enmity that existed between God and the true followers of Christ and reconciled us together with Christ through His death on the cross.  How precious is the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ to all true believers today...certainly the same as in the times of the Apostle Paul.  And the Apostle Paul admonishes believers in our day to be followers of Christ, using his walk as an example (Philippians 3:17-21) and avoid those that are not following Christ in this manner.  However, he admonishes, even weeping, that there would be many who would not follow in Paul's walk in his day, and he classifies them as enemies of the cross of Christ whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly and who mind earthly things--as opposed to the true believers, whose thoughts, life and actions reflect the life of Christ.  Therefore it behooved Paul to write in Galatians 6:14 that, "it would be far from me to glory in anything of this world, or in any one person in this world, or in anything of the flesh, other than me to glory only in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world."  But Paul fully realized that Satan would try to stamp out the true meaning of the cross, especially in the end of this current dispensation.  Unfortunately he seems to have hit it right on in 1 Corinthians 1:17-18, when he wrote that the preaching of the cross is, to those who are perishing, foolishness.  We suppose that is why many have removed the sign of the cross from church buildings that are professing to be Christian; but Paul closed his observation with, "but unto us which are saved it is the power of God." 

       Let's bring back that cross in our lives, as the Apostle Paul did in Romans 1:16, when he said that he is, "not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation unto the Jew first and also to the Gentile."  Or as the beloved Apostle John stated in 2 John 9, for those who sin in not continuing in Christ's teaching (in the Gospels) have not God, but he that continues in Christ's teaching (in the Gospels) has both the Father and the Son. 

       George Bennard wrote "The Old Rugged Cross" back in 1913, and it is said to have been the greatest hymn written in that century; in fact, it is reported to have been more popular than any music written in that century, whether secular or Christian.  At the time he wrote it, he received some criticism that we should be focusing on Christ more than the cross, but we know when we see a building with a cross on the steeple, we know to go in there to fellowship with people who believe in the Christ of the cross.  Let's not let Satan take down the cross, but be as proud as the Apostle Paul was when he said that he glories in the cross of Christ (Galatians 6:14).