Finding The Cross

This morning when I arose, the words "blessed is the man...." resonated in my spirit. As I searched on my computer, as soon as I read the scripture, I was instantly humbled...grateful for what Christ has done for me...and continues to do for me for that matter.

Often times, we talk about the blessings of the Lord, we talk about the inheritance He gives us, we talk about the armour of His that we wear, how He's clothed us in righteousness....and yet, I wonder, do we actually understand the meaning of such things as "He has clothed us with righteousness?" I don't think we really do. I think if we take "The Cross" lightly and look at it as though it's something we already know and fully understand, then we have missed the point altogether.

I'm awed when I read the words of David the King, how he would say things like "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered." David had a grasp on something that very few had...He believed in God's mercy, something God did not often show in Old Testament times. Before Christ, people were ruled by the Law. The Law condemns, therefore, when someone broke it, they were punished. End of Story. Christ has afforded us much more than we realize daily...not only has He washed us of our sins....not only does He remember them no more, He does else as well: He doesn't impute our sins to us either.

What does "imputing sins" mean? Let me explain quickly what these two words mean. Impute simply means "to calculate, count or compute." Sin means "mistakes, missing the mark of perfection."

These two words and their meanings are very interesting because since the Apostle Paul says that the Lord doesn't impute our sins, what He is really saying is that He doesn't calculate all of the times we have missed the mark of perfection. Why is that so amazing? Well, honestly, when I taught our youth group a couple years ago, I tried to explain the Law to them like this:

Ok, we all know that lying is bad. Now, the Law (The Ten Commandments) says that we aren't to do it. Here's the kicker though, not only are we to NOT lie, we are to NOT LIE for our entire LIFETIME. we're not talking about one offense, we're talking about never, ever, ever, ever, ever....and Jesus even said it like this, He said that if a man looked after a woman to lust, then that man had already committed adultery in his heart. That means that if the man had even so much as thought about it, then he was already at fault and guilty of the sin. What this ultimately means is that the bar is raised so much higher than we could ever reach. What God actually expects from us is PERFECTION.

Some might say that is unfair, however, He is always Just. So if He demands perfection from us, and we are to NOT sin for our entire lifetime, then how are we ever to make it to Heaven with a standard like that. Is He against us? No, of course not. What then? What God has done by raising the standard to perfection is to lead us to the ONLY ONE that every HAS lived a completely sinless life, and that's the Jesus Christ of the Cross. Christ never knew sin, and yet He took our sin upon His own body, suffering the penalty for breaking the Law (which is death), He did THAT for US. So...it's not enough to say that Christ has forgiven our sins, there's more at stake than that. He also doesn't give us the punishment in which we deserve every second of every day...which is death. Eveyr moment of every day, we are "falling short of the Glory of God" and missing the mark of perfection. And every moment of every day, God is looking at what Christ did for us instead of looking at what we are and what we're doing on a continual basis. That is a miracle all on it's own....this is the Mercy of God.

So...Thanks be to the Lord Jesus that we can walk through each moment of each day with a grateful heart, knowing that we're not condemned (found guilty) for all of our slip-ups...either in mind or in deed. All because God robed Himself in flesh and came here in the womb of a virgin named Mary, so that He could redeem His children from a lifetime of torment and flames.

Now every time we do or think something that is contrary to perfection, whenever we are accused of the enemy for our many faults, we are able to point to Christ and say "I'm trusting in what HE did FOR ME, not what I do or don't do."

Thank you Lord for the Cross.

This morning the Lord led me to a scripture that I've never noticed much before today. As soon as I read it, I saw the Cross in it, it was amazing!

"Pro 8:34 Blessed [is] the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors"

It's the "posts of my doors" part that caught my attention. You can find the Cross of Christ in every scripture you read! So I'm going to discuss the last part of this scripture first. Many already know this, but there are some that don't...in the book of Exodus, there's a story of the Children on Israel that had been in bondage for 400 years to the Pharoahs of Egypt. They were enslaved, highly mistreated, abused, neglected, unto the point of wishing themselves either deliverance or death (I would imagine). God sent a man that He had set aside for such a time as that, a man that was a Hebrew by birth, but was not raised with his people or in bondage as they had been. This man's name was Moses. Moses was sent out into the wilderness and stayed there for about 40 years before the Lord sent him back to Egypt to free God's people. When he came back, Pharoah wasn't going to give up so easily. God told Moses to warn all that during the Feast of Passover (a festival that the Jews traditionally celebrate, commemorating and rehearsing what would happen this very night in time & history)...the night before God set His Children free forever.

Moses instructed the people to take a spotless & perfect lamb (an innocent & sinless animal that symbolized Jesus Christ) and to slay it (symbolizing His death on the Cross for us), then they were to eat that Lamb...all of it (John 6:53 read this scripture for sure!), and they were to take the blood of this lamb, and they were to put it on the top of the door & on each side of the door. (see pic above) No doubt that when you apply fresh, wet blood to the top of a doorpost, it would most likely drip down and also be on the threshold of the door as well, with that said...if you'll notice, when you see the blood on the sides and the top (Exodus 12:7), if you were to draw lines, you would see that these form a Cross. So...there He is, Jesus, the Star of the Bible, always on stage and in the spotlight...to be our sole focus in all that we do...Here He is, not only in the Story of the Exodus, but He is also starring in our featured scripture today...He is the doorpost that we stand waiting at, watching for His return. Our focus is to always be Jesus Christ and what He did for us at the Cross....

Because of the Cross we are free
Because of the Cross we are God's again,
Because of the Cross we are "Blessed" (which means Happy)....Thank you for the Cross Lord, Thank you!

This morning when I woke up, the Lord laid this scripture on my heart. I'm always amazed at this scripture, because it reminds me of a time in my life when I was so deep under condemnation that I truly didn't realize how much law I was under. I wasn't aware of how free Christ has made me, simply because of His sacrifice on the Cross.

We had a special friend of ours come visit us yesterday, and he too, has been under a deep condemnation. The I saw mirrored in his tears yesterday, what I have felt many times in my walk with the Lord...so it is no surprise to me that the Lord reminded me of this scripture and what He spoke to my heart the day I began to break free from the enemy's condemnation.

"There is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION to them which are in Christ Jesus." Most people don't realize that this is actually the entire verse. The period ends the sentence, right after the words "Christ Jesus." Those that might be well versed would be shaking their heads and saying to themselves, "No, she forgot the last part which says 'who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit'." My reply to that is this: that last part is what is called "an interpellated verse," which means that when the Apostle Paul wrote this, he did not originally include the "who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit" part of this verse. Often times, when the King James was being translated, the writers would feel that the verse as it was written didn't appear to read clearly, smoothly, or maybe it didn't quite make sense to them, so they would add to the original verse, in attempt to make it read "better." My problem with them interpellating this verse is that it makes the first part of the scripture read as though there are conditions to what God has said here, and the truth is, there are no conditions to His original message to us. So what God has said is that "There is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION to them which are in Christ Jesus." Period.

The reason I stress that point so strongly is because it prefaces the next point I want to make. "No Condemnation." Most people read over this simple one lined scripture as though to move onto the next, possibly more important piece of text...when the truth is, if we don't get this part, we can't begin to understand the rest of what He's going to say to us in this chapter.

"No Condmenation"....that word "condemnation" in the greek means: "to give judgment against or to judge worthy of punishment, receiving a damnatory sentence."

Now, I ask you this...How, if a debt has been paid in full, can someone send you a bill for that which has already been paid? How can we, as people receive condemnation, if Christ paid for this already at the Cross?

Let me back up a little. Ok, let's turn to Romans 3:10-18, Paul tells us that no one is righteous but God, he also states what we (as sinful humans) are, we are an open grave...we are an empty vessel prepared to contain filth of the worst kind...death. James says that the wages of sin is death.

What most of us don't realize is that when we were born, no matter how good, clean, and fresh we smelled...we're born dying. From the moment we take our first breath, the ground is already pulling at our feet. The grave beckons us, and daily our bodies strive to escape that death. The prophet Jeremiah states that our righteousness is as filthy menstrual rags, worthy of nothing but throwing away in disgust. So...if we can recognize that we are all of that without Christ....if we are capable of no good on our own without His Divine assistance (of which we are NOT able to be "good" without Him), then HE MUST BE all that we AREN'T. Jesus Christ is the opposite of what WE are. He is the Author of Life, the Giver of all things good, the Creator and He is PERFECT.

The cross was merely a trading post. A place where a Holy, Righteous, Just God came and met us, sinful humanity that couldn't approach God in our current state because we were too unworthy. Such Perfection as He is, would have only destroyed humanity instantly upon being in His Presence....but what happened, was a Loving God decided to make a way where there seemed to be no way. Before Christ went to the Cross, we were all in eternal jail, destined for certain death and torment for the duration of time. The key to the jail, (as far as we knew) had been thrown away and our fate had been sealed. But Christ (the Key) came and unlocked the door, freeing us from sin and making a Way for us to come back to God again. All we had to do in order that the door be unlocked, is put our faith in what Christ did for us. Christ took our place.

Since James says that the wages of sin is death, Christ did what only a Loving God could do...He said he'd be our whipping boy, He'd be the One to take our punishment instead, so that we wouldn't have to suffer.

I keep speaking about the Cross, not to bore the reader, but to explain the depths of this transaction that has occurred on our behalf. So...back to the scripture, how can we NOT be condemned, even though it is absolutely what we have earned and deserve? Because Christ, who was perfect and knew no sin, became sin for us, so that we could live free from it. Therefore, if HE paid the price, and took the condmenation on our behalf, then we (if we have placed our faith in what He did for us), then we are IN CHRIST.

If we are IN CHRIST, then when God looks at us, He doesn't see us, He sees Christ...not us, because we are HIDDEN IN HIM....so when the enemy comes at us, and he reminds us of all that we aren't (and he's right, we're not all that Christ is, we aren't perfect), when the devil pounds us and reminds us of all of our wrong doing, we able to boldly approach the Throne room of Grace because we know that we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ...the One who paid our debts.

Now, we can stand sure in Christ, knowing that even though we strive to be perfect....we desire to be more like Him...we can know that there's no condmenation to us, because our faith is in Him...and He's taken care of all of the things that we can't. We can lay those heavy things at His feet, knowing He is in control and that this too shall pass...