A Misconception of the Cross - Part III

“And He said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Lk. 9:23).

THE DAY THE CROSS WAS REVEALED TO ME
I’ll never forget the day that the Message of the Cross was revealed to me. It was a Sunday morning at Family Worship Center, and I had been home for about a year or so after attending a particular Christian university in Oklahoma.

Up to that point in my life, I had little understanding of the Cross of Christ. I knew the Cross for salvation, but when it came to my everyday life and living, I was clueless. I was trying to earn my sanctification from God, and my faith was in my performance, which brought about untold heartache and pain. There were moments in my life when I wanted to throw in the white towel because I could not live up to my own expectations or the expectations of others. I was fighting a losing battle, and I did not know what to do.

Then it happened. On that Sunday morning, while sitting on the platform where all of the associate pastors sit, I was listening to my grandfather preach. As he was walking right in front of the platform, all of a sudden he turned toward the camera. He made a statement that he had made any number of times before that day, and he has made it many times since that day. He said, “The answer for which you seek is found in the Cross.” These were the words that were given to him by the Lord when he was seeking the face of God regarding his own personal life.

As he made that statement, it was as if the blinders were removed, and I could see what he was saying. I can’t explain it any other way but to say that my whole world changed. I got it! I finally got it! It was the very thing that I was missing in my Christian life—the Cross and my faith in that finished work. At that moment I thought to myself (as so many others have) that everything would be so different. Victory was mine, and there would be no more issues in life.

However, to my dismay, I found that I was wrong. I did not count on the attacks of Satan growing more powerful by the minute. I did not expect the powers of darkness to come at me the way they did after hearing and believing the Message of the Cross. It felt as if Satan had set his sights on me and would stop at nothing to destroy me. I did not understand this then; however, looking back on my life, I now realize that Satan was trying to destroy my faith, or make me move my faith from the Cross of Christ to something else. This is where the question comes in, “The Cross may work for you, but why doesn’t it work for me?”

The idea is this: The Cross is the key to more abundant life (Jn. 10:10), and it is the only message in this world that can bring about the deliverance that we need. There is no other message that can bring about results as the Message of the Cross can.

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