THE CROSS…AND NOTHING BUT THE CROSS!

GALATIANS 2:20-21: “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.”

OBSERVATION: How do I live my life in Christ? This is the question with which I begin my life of faith, and one that I need to ask myself every day. It is easy to get off course unless we remember the central truth of the Gospel.

It is the Cross…and nothing but the Cross!

When we begin our walk of faith in Christ, we come to the Cross with the recognition that we are sinners in need of grace. We come in sincere repentance and with empty hands. In a beautiful rendition of the old hymn, “Just as I Am”, the bridge echoes our encounter with Christ at the Cross.

I come broken to be mended

I come wounded to be healed

I come desperate to be rescued

I come empty to be filled

I come guilty to be pardoned

By the blood of Christ the Lamb

And I’m welcomed with open arms

Praise God, just as I am

This is how we come to the Cross. This is the only way we can come to the Cross. This is how we meet Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and Lord. Yet, if we are honest, it is difficult to maintain this posture as we begin to live out our new life in Christ. It is so easy to slip back into old patterns and rely on our own effort as we endeavor to follow Christ.

Peter, the Apostle who walked with Jesus and preached the Gospel to the Gentiles for the first time, struggled with his walk with Christ. Paul writes to the Galatian church, which was dealing with a group of Jewish Christians who were insisting that the Gentile believers needed to follow the Jewish Law. The Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) had decided this, but the Judaizers, as they were called, insisted that the Gentile believers also follow the Law. Paul had to confront Peter over his hypocrisy in living out the Cross, the Gospel of grace.

“But when Cephas (Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. For he regularly ate with the Gentiles before certain men came from James. However, when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, because he feared those from the circumcision party…But when I saw that they were deviating from the truth of the gospel, I told Cephas in front of everyone, “If you, who are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel Gentiles to live like Jews? ” Galatians 2:11-12,14

How is this relevant to our lives? We begin our Christians life with a complete trust in Jesus Christ. We understand that we are saved by grace through faith and not because of our works. We lay down our striving, our works, our understanding, our sin and brokenness at the foot of the Cross. We rise in newness of life and begin, with sincerity, to follow Jesus Christ.

Then, something happens. We begin to forget our humble beginnings. We slowly dust off our old life, the good parts of it, and try to follow Christ in our strength. We equate the things we do with the favor and love of God. Therefore, we try harder and harder to please God. It is not our effort that is amiss. It is the source of our effort. We are no longer living in Christ; we are struggling to live for Him. We are like a sailboat in the middle of the ocean, without wind, and we are trying to navigate the oceans of life with a tiny paddle.

The Law is a tiny paddle that only reveals man’s sin and inability to become righteous through human effort. While we do not think of our life in terms of the Old Testament Law as the Jewish believers did in Paul’s day, we struggle with the same misunderstanding. We view our position in Christ based on what we do after our salvation rather than on what He has already done. We struggle in our faith rather than rest in His grace. So Paul reminds the Galatian believers,

“I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”Galatians 2:20

The Cross is where we meet Jesus. The Cross is where we walk with Jesus. The Cross is where we become like Jesus. The Cross is where we worship Jesus. The Cross proclaims, “I am crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me!” The Cross is both the end and the beginning. It is the end where I die to sin, and the beginning where Christ lives in me! It is where I begin and end each day. It is my reminder that the only life that can please God is a life yielded to Christ, empowered by Christ, and living in Christ.

It is the Cross…and nothing but the Cross!

So, Paul writes…

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.”Galatians 2:21

We are saved by grace, we are sanctified by grace, we are redeemed by grace. It is grace from start to finish. The Cross is our daily reminder that the life we now live in the flesh, we can only live by faith in the completed work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. When we kneel before the Cross each day, we experience the grace of God and experience the wonder of the Christian life…

Christ, living in me, the hope of glory.

Heavenly Father, help me to live in and through the Cross of Jesus Christ, my Lord, each day!

In Jesus’ Name!