Back to the Cross
Mark 8:34 When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
The apostle could not have seen and understood that he had been crucified with Christ without first having experienced the life of Christ in him – that the crucified One who died and rose is the one who lives in him – that Christ’s victory on the cross became his.
Daily taking up the cross to follow Christ will change perspective on everything – it is only the disciple that is really united to Jesus.
We need the one who lives in us to recreate that death and resurrection experience. We can’t see anything until God opens our eyes, we look at things wrongly until God delivers us, we don’t know anything until God speaks. We are to look at things in a completely different way.
So often we’re looking at things carnally and so God
brings us to the end of ourselves. Trials are gutteral and ‘impossible’ because God is trainng us to look at them in the light and the life of Christ within. It is Christ emulating His life – His death – His victory through the mind and life of the disciple. The life of Christ in us is to totally and completely change us – it’s a new birth.
2 Corinthians 5:17New King James Version (NKJV)
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
To lay hold of the cross we first have to keep letting go of
those areas of weakness and pride we still want to keep. There’s no other way that the cross can be central in our lives day by day. We need to ask that God would so work that we never lose sight of the cross.
God is going to give us these things if we ask for them – so often we ask amiss. If we’re not fully focussed on the cross and allowing it to do it’s work in our daily life then now is the time to come back to the cross and fully gaze upon it – and what is birthed from it. The crucified life of each disciple springs eternally from the finished work of our Lord and saviour on the cross.
Back to the Cross | crucified life
