The Cross...Our Dwelling Place
Gal.6:14 - But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord esus Christ...
I have been a Christian for 33 years and have been a student of church history. In that study and experience I have watched as Christianity has ridden upon the waves of culture and morphed due to the whims and discontent of its people and the pressures of the outside world. Like the seasons it runs cycles, focusing on one thing and then another due to different ingredients and variables.
I predict the soon end to the strength of the ”health and wealth” movement because its growth was due in large part to an overall prosperity in America and surely not any reading of the New Testament. When the war in Iraq is brought to an end and the American presence is significantly diminished, then the debt dollars that have fueled this economy will drop out like the bottom of a wet paper bag. When that happens we all will “suffer” financially and it will become harder and harder to maintain that prosperity lie, even in the ears of the most gullible. The government investigations will add to this spectacle.
Even now there are movements taking hold like the purpose driven movement, the emergent church movement, the seeker church movement, and others that will rise and then fall after they strut and fret their hour upon the evangelical stage. I have come to the conclusion that the wandering hearts of believers have been largely responsible for the cyclical nature of Christianity. The new generations reject the status quo as practiced by their parents and they invent some new and exciting flavors of Christianity that will appeal to them and others. And so you have these “waves” of evangelicalism that like the tides come in and out only to make room for others.
There is nothing wrong with some cultural adaptation that both benefits our understandings concerning Biblical truth while simultaneously endeavors to retain the precise nature of that truth. But as time marches on it seems some segments of the church always get bored and discontent with the “same old” teachings about the cross, the incarnation, the resurrection, heaven, hell, and all that “kid” stuff that seems too redundant to keep the attention, much less the worship, of these new and modern Christians. Trouble always ensues when the church grows tired and complacent about the gospel and its meaning.
And so the church, especially in the west, is in trouble. I personally believe they must run their course with all the accompanying fanfare, and then some more aberrant than these will come running. What is the answer? God. Even if God uses his people to speak against these movements those that need to hear are not listening and many times those who speak against them morph into puffed up gladiators rather than humble servants. The devil has his double edged sword as well. The answer for the “average” believer is to bow down to the King, seek His face through much prayer and His Word, and never allow the shortcomings of others to become our focus and blind us to our own pervasive spiritual failings. We need a massive revival that shakes the foundations of Christ’s church and transforms us all into luminescent followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, powerful in humility, bold in brokenness, strong in weakness, and fully and sacrificially committed to giving our very lives for His gospel and not any other cause or distraction.
A mother robin lights upon her nest to feed her three baby chicks. She looks down and sees that only two babies have their beaks open, so after attempting unsuccessfully to have the third open his beak, she divides the worm into two and feeds those two whose beaks openly beg for food. That is how the Father feeds His children as well. Those whose hearts and ears are open will receive His nourishment and those whose hearts and ears are closed will not.
You my fellow believer must not only open your heart to Him, you and I must ask God for the grace necessary to open it wider and wider with each passing day. Our sustenance does not come from identifying the falling away of others, that must never become our spiritual strength. Our strength is in the Lord and our walk with Him is primarily between two parties, you and Him. When you bring distractions into your prayer time, or worse yet find your prayer time shrinking because of others, that is when we must jettison everything in favor of time with Him and Him alone.
All that is taking place within the church is in God’s hands, and our words, however obedient and corrective, will not stem the tide. This too will pass and our Sovereign God knows and sees all without worry and under His wings do we find spiritual solace. Let the different streams of Biblical thought run from church to church, and let them have, as others in the past have as well, what they believe will satisfy their spiritual hunger. God says to Moses, “What is that which you have in your hand?”. That is the deception, we, like the fictional Dorothy, have always had what we need to return to Christ and find that “there’s no place like home”. The gospel and its centerpiece, the cross, is not some basic teaching from which mature believers move away. No, God forbid, the cross and Christ’s gospel message is that into which we run further and further, bathing our souls and unlocking treasures far beyond what we ever thought possible. And in a majestic and unimaginable mystery, we sometimes come full circle and see that childlike faith in the gospel and its cross is indeed the deepest attainable knowledge in God’s realm of the Spirit.
And after all the Hebrew, all the Greek, all the systematic theology, all the translations, all the types and shadows, all the deep theological discussions, and all the beneficial insights of men and women of God, we wake up again at Golgotha’s resplendence. Look around and see the church running to and fro to discover the latest offering from men’s minds, but can you not see they run past that which they are searching for, the cross. In two thousand years of church history, and in the archives of majestic Old Testament shadows, we have only scratched the surface of the cross in all its glory. Let us not quit our diligent digging to uncover more and more, and as one door of glory opens it reveals ten more doors through which to walk, all of which have the same lock that opens with the same key, the cross. It is the height of arrogant ignorance to move away from the cross at a time in church history when we need to return and cling to it so desperately.
The church cycles its focus and the sheep seem to blindly follow any excitement, but not God’s Spirit. You will not find God’s Spirit dwelling around men’s finances, nor around earthly success, nor around human displays of grandeur, if you truly desire to fellowship and bask in God’s Spirit you must start with Calvary. And surely not a cameo appearance or some tacit acknowledgement, oh no, if that is your plan you will have wasted your time. When you go to the cross be prepared to dwell there, and come expecting no short and convenient season. Come ready to “lengthen the cords and deepen the stakes”. Come ready to be changed. Come ready for illumination. Come ready for pain. Come ready for correction. Come ready for tears. Come ready for wonder. Come ready for majesty. Come ready for worship. Come ready for blood.
Any ministry which has the cross as a sidebar is not a ministry, it is a product of man and does disservice to the glory of Almighty God and His Incarnate Redeemer. And any believer that has placed the cross upon a shelf of past years needs a fresh touch from the crimson drips which can only be found when that cross is again removed from some shelf of doctrinal yesteryear and made alive in our hearts once again. This wounded body upon which we gaze is our only glory, and it is the portal through which all spiritual blessings flow to us, and it renders us as worthless without it. It does not just afford us strength, it is our strength. Not just a hiding place but a dwelling place. Not just forgiveness but justification. Not just death but life. Not just a moment but eternity.
Oh how could we ever leave Him? Leave Him, you say? When we leave the cross we have left Him, the one who brought His redemptive wounds to heaven to make an open show of triumph and to ever tether His glory to that cross. It is unthinkable and breathtaking to see this everlasting milestone upon which God showed Himself most clearly, and then to realize it was without any merit on our part. How do we repay, how can our eyes ever be dry, when we think upon this cross? Away with all theology that is built upon anything but that scarlet tree, away with all of men’s concoctions that teach everything but the cross, it is all vanity and vexation of spirit indeed.
So reject the merry-go-round of church teachings, the cyclical rotation of attempting to satisfy the misguided desires of a carnal church. Return fully to the ancient landmark, that which establishes all other landmarks, and cling to the old rugged cross. The greatest single event in time and before time and after time, the deepest mystery ever presented, and the loftiest expression of divine communication, is and always will be those two ordinary Roman planks upon which the God of all Creation suffers and dies…for the ungodly.
Selah. Selah. Selah…
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