We need to do more than relate to the cross of Christ merely as a distant historical event. Yes, we believe it happened two thousand years ago and because it happened our sins are forgiven. But we need to embrace Him on the cross today because it works today. In your relationship with Christ, you never outgrow the cross. You never put it aside or make it secondary. It must be your daily experience.

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Show Notes:

The cross is where our relationship with Christ begins. Yet it is easy for us to leave behind our salvation experience with Christ on the cross and move onto other things. We know that He is not only our Savior through the cross, but He is also the Lord, and so we are to know Him as Lord. We are to grow in the things of God and that means moving on. But we never stop walking on the foundation. And the cross of Christ is the foundation of our life and our relationship with God.

You can embrace Christ on the cross at any given moment. Yeshua (Jesus) said that we must take up our cross daily if we are to follow Him. And we interpret our cross as being our personal grief and sorrows and suffering. But Christ bore our grief and sorrows on the cross. He bore our suffering that was caused by our sins separating us from God. The cross that we carry daily is the cross of Christ. And we need to start our day in a connection with all He did on that cross for us and because of us.

If you are struggling every day with everything the world is imposing on you, the answer is the cross of Christ. It is only at His cross where you are crucified to the world and the world is crucified to you. We never leave the necessity of the cross of Christ. We must never get so far away from it in our lives that we become enemies of the cross, as Paul warned. Instead we strive to know the Christ whose death on the cross is our daily experience of being conformed to His death and to His resurrection.

Key Verses:

• Luke 23:34. “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
• Luke 9:23. “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must … take up his cross daily.”
• Isaiah 53:4–5. “Our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried.”
• Galatians 6:14. “In the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ … the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
• Hebrews 7:25. “He always lives to make intercession for them.”
• Matthew 27:46. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
• 1 Corinthians 2:2. “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”
• 1 John 1:7–9. “If we walk in the Light, … the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
• Romans 10:6–10. “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART.”
• Hebrews 11:1. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
• Philippians 3:7–14. “I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.”
• Philippians 3:15–18. “Many walk, of whom I often told you, … that they are enemies of the cross of Christ.”

Quotes:

• “The cross will always be with us. Just as we understand that Christ Himself will bear in His body the marks of the cross, the cross itself is existent in the moment. It’s existent now in this moment.”
• “If I confess my sin in this moment, then the cross is alive in this moment, and He forgives me in this moment and cleanses me in this moment from all sin and unrighteousness.”
• “There’s no knowing of Christ without knowing Him in that moment—in those moments on the cross where He is dying for me and because of me, and He’s dying for you and because of you, and He’s dying for the whole world, who hopefully at some point will have this revelation and come to the cross.”

Takeaways:

1. The cross of Christ is more than a historical event that we believe happened. The event of Christ’s death and what He accomplished by that on the cross is right now in the moment. And we need to experience that moment daily.
2. If that seems too mystical, then understand that everything about belief as a Christian is mystical. Everything surrounding our faith in God is mystical because God dwells outside of this realm of time-space that we are bound by.
3. There is one cross: the cross of Christ. You do not carry a different cross. Everything that you can interpret as your cross—your personal sufferings and sorrows—He bore for you and because of you on His cross. That is the cross that you take up daily to follow Him.
4. We never outgrow the need of the cross as we progress into the Kingdom of God. Our maturity means knowing Christ and that includes knowing Him on His cross.