There is a war that tears at our very souls, and at the center of it is the Cross. On one side, there is everything we have ever known. Every desire, love, and sin hovers here, calling for us to come. And then there is the Cross. At the Cross, we are called to come and die to all we have known before because on the other side of the Cross is life, true and eternal. Lilias Trotter writes, "'The death of the Cross'- death's triumph hour- that was the point where God's gate opened; and to that gate we come again and again, as our lives unfold, and through it pass even on earth to our joyful resurrection, to a life each time more abundant, for each time the dying is a deeper dying." Is there any wonder that our sin prone soul battles at the prospect of crucifixion? Sin deceives us so easily into believing it is best. It is quite comfortable on that side of the cross. Nothing challenges us there. We don't have to go out of our comfort zone. We do whatever we want no matter the consequences.
Yet, even as we remain there so comfortably, we cannot hide from ourselves the fact that we are terribly broken. Our comfort and enjoyment are dreadfully dangerous because they blind us to sin's natural end: death. The Cross challenges us; at the foot of the Cross we must confess that we are broken and dirty. At the cross we are challenged to follow and die. To leave it all in pursuit of the Crucified! We are left with a choice, at this place of decision. There is no turning back. Either we embrace the cross or spurn it. Again, Lilias Trotter says it so well: "Death is the only way out of the world of condemnation wherein we lie. Shut into that world, it is vain to try by any self-effort to battle out; nothing can revoke the decree 'the soul that sinneth it shall die.' The only choice left is this. Shall it be, under the old headship of Adam, our own death, in all that God means by the word, or shall it be, under the headship of Christ, the death of another in our place?" Paul writes in the book of Galatians, "But far be it for me to boast except in the the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14). Christ does not call us to go where He has not gone before. As we look to the Cross, let us remember this truth. Where there is crucifixion, there is resurrection. On the other side of the Cross, there is an empty tomb.
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