March 22

The Meaning Of The Cross

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus: — Phil 2:5 BSB

Faith is not just an intellectual acceptance of a fact, but it is personal trust and confidence in the One to whom that fact applies. We are not saved merely by believing that Jesus Christ died for us on the Cross, but by trusting in Him who died. It is the personal connection between Christ and us that allows His life to flow into ours, making us spiritually healthy, secure, and safe.

What does the Cross mean to you and me? Doesn’t it show that our Lord completely submitted to the Father’s will? Never once did He act out of His own initiative, but He was always an open channel for God’s purposes. “He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” It seemed as though He descended lower and lower, each rung of the ladder taking Him deeper into suffering, until He reached Hades itself, giving up everything just to follow the will of God. But from that lowest point, God raised Him to the eternal throne.

Each of us has a strong will that insists on its own way. You might say, “I am determined to be good, to live a noble life, to give up bad habits—I will do it.” But it can never be accomplished that way. Only when we are willing to see ourselves—our own energy, our good self as well as our bad self—brought to an end at the Cross of Jesus, will we be able to enter into His eternal life.

Right now, I urge you to stand beneath the Cross and see there the One who gave up His own will entirely. More than that, I want you to see your own self nailed there, and turn to God in adoration, saying that you are ready to be weak and helpless in your own strength so that He may work in you with the same power that raised Christ from the dead. Only when we are weak are we truly strong; only when we surrender ourselves to the power of the Cross, recognizing that we have been crucified with Christ, can we share in His eternal victory over sin and evil.

Prayer

O God, You have revealed Yourself to us in Your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. We love Him because He endured the Cross and despised its shame to save us. May we follow Him along the way of the Cross, bearing His reproach, sharing in His sufferings, obedient even to death, so that we may also live and reign with Him here and more perfectly in the life to come. Amen.