For those who have spent much time in the church, there is a Scripture that is very familiar to us, and much loved at that. It's Matthew 11:28 and Jesus' invitation to "Come unto Me all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." It's a beautiful invitation and promise. A very true promise. So, why do so few of us really experience the wonder and beauty of the invitation? I think it's because we don't understand just what Christ invited us to do.
A very popular Christian band through the mid 90's and into the early 2000's was the group, Delirious. They sang some extremely powerful worship songs. One such was The Message Of The Cross. It has as a lyric, This is the message of the cross, that we can be free. To lay all our burdens here, at the foot of the tree. It goes on to the lyric, Let us rejoice at the foot of the cross, we can be free, glory to God. I think this truth is key to why we miss experiencing the wonder and beauty of His promise and invitation. We don't understand or else refuse to do that which opens the fullness of the promise to us. We don't understand that when Christ invites us to come unto Him, He is also ultimately inviting us to come to His cross. It's His cross that leads us to life, freedom, and rest.
When we lay all those things that weary us, hurt us, crush us, and in the end will destroy us, we don't just come to Him with them, we surrender them all to Him. We may willingly come to Him, but surrendering all to Him? That's another matter altogether. Perhaps the hardest transaction for any of us to make is the giving over from our hands everything in our lives into to His. It means we release control and ownership of all of it to Him. Our flesh demands that we cling to them. His cross commands that we die to that demand and yield them all to Him. We die to them all, and included in the "all" is our own will.This is a stumbling block for our flesh and our self-will. So much so that many, most, turn back from His invitation and never enter into the promise. His invitation remains before us and we love how it sounds. We don't love what it entails.
People have oftentimes asked me to pray for them that certain chaotic situations in their lives would change. I believe that they do want the change, but they never seem to grasp that all of my prayers or anyone's prayers won't matter until they themselves release the root cause of the chaos to Him....at His cross, and the root cause is always a refusal to surrender everything in their life to Him. So the chaos, the situation, the pain and the difficulty remain. They want to come to Him, but they stumble at coming to His cross and surrendering everything to Him. That's the essence of the message of the cross.
What are you doing with the message of the cross in your life? What you do will determine how you will live. You may have come to Christ for salvation, the forgiveness of your sin, the promise of heaven, for entry into His Kingdom, but have you come to His cross? Have you laid everything in your life, your very life itself, at "the foot of the tree?" Have you died to your will there so that you might live in His? The fullness of the message of the cross is the only path into the fullness of His rest, peace, joy, and abundance. May you, we, receive the message in full.
People have oftentimes asked me to pray for them that certain chaotic situations in their lives would change. I believe that they do want the change, but they never seem to grasp that all of my prayers or anyone's prayers won't matter until they themselves release the root cause of the chaos to Him....at His cross, and the root cause is always a refusal to surrender everything in their life to Him. So the chaos, the situation, the pain and the difficulty remain. They want to come to Him, but they stumble at coming to His cross and surrendering everything to Him. That's the essence of the message of the cross.
What are you doing with the message of the cross in your life? What you do will determine how you will live. You may have come to Christ for salvation, the forgiveness of your sin, the promise of heaven, for entry into His Kingdom, but have you come to His cross? Have you laid everything in your life, your very life itself, at "the foot of the tree?" Have you died to your will there so that you might live in His? The fullness of the message of the cross is the only path into the fullness of His rest, peace, joy, and abundance. May you, we, receive the message in full.
Blessings,
Pastor O
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