The Cross

 One of the ministries I'm involved in at our church is the recovery ministry. This is a ministry that is both deeply rewarding and yet so often heartbreaking. Rewarding because you get the joy of witnessing those who truly find full freedom in Jesus Christ, through His blood and His cross. Heartbreaking because so many who are a part of the ministry never really break free of the chains that brought them to it in the first place. It's an issue every pastor and minister of grace has always faced. Why do so many not find the freedom that He so freely offers? Why do so many never come out of their prison cells?

Last night in the small group that's part of the ministry, a young brother who's experienced tremendous growth and transformation over the course of the last two years shared a real key to his freedom. A key that is painfully obvious but to which so many remain painfully oblivious to. His was a wonderful story of coming out of a lifestyle of heavy drug use, sexual promiscuity, and all levels of rebellious behavior. He said that what it was that kept him from drifting back into that lifestyle, which would have been easy to do, was his keeping his focus completely on the cross of Christ. He kept his eyes on Christ and His cross. 

Someone said that the antidote to relapse and addiction is an addiction to the cross. That's exactly what this young man spoke of. Issac Watts, in his wonderful hymn, At The Cross, has the lyric, At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the Light, and the burden of my heart rolled away. The burden of sin. Sin, and all the destruction it brings with it, cannot reign in our hearts and lives so long as we keep our eyes on Him and His cross. At the cross, our sin nature is crucified, and so long as we never lose sight of His cross, it stays crucified. Scripture says that in Christ, the old has passed away and all things have become new. The cross of Christ guarantees that the old has passed away and that all things continue to be new. Relapse into a sinning lifestyle and sinning behaviors, and all the destruction they bring, cannot happen when one's heart and sight is fixed upon Christ and His cross.

Eugene Peterson sums it all up with this quote. "What is wrong with the world is that we have sinned in refusing to let God be for us, over us, and in us." It is no more simple and clear than that. I don't make light of the things and reasons that have led many into the terrible lifestyles that they live, or simply in lifestyles that have no place for Christ in them. I do say that the ongoing captivity and emptiness that is the result is so because of our refusal of His grace. Grace that was fully released and made available to us on the cross, through His blood, His death, and His resurrection. It was these that have broken the power of sin and death, but for it to be real and lasting in our lives, we need to live at the cross, gazing at the cross, always seeing Christ. Not upon it, but Christ victorious over it. Victorious over sin...and the death it brings. Is that experience and way of life yours today? Are you ready for it to be? Be free of the prison cell and the chains. He came so that it could and would be so for you. For us.

Blessings,

Pastor O