Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Love, The Cross, and Engines


Love

        In the efforts of human flesh over the generations is the lack of the knowledge of scripture and its basis for the gospel.  Farewell Rob Bell?  Love Wins?  I’m not sure that these statements represent the angst of most Christians. 
        To be real honest with you, I’m ashamed of most evangelicals who claim the gospel as their claim to God, yet have no clue what the driving force behind the gospel is.  I can tell you that it is not human effort that brings forth the gospel, it is not how many times you have your name check on the roll sheet on a Sunday Morning, and it is not a claim to God by your emotion and will.
        Mr. Bell is right, Love does win not because Love doesn’t send a person to hell, but because Love demands justice and righteousness.  A loving God is a wrathful God, if God is not wrath then he is not just and His love for people is not based on righteousness.  Would God send Ghandi to hell?  How arrogant have we become to question what God would do or not do?  Ghandi is as much deserved of hell as you or I? So, why would He not?  Did Ghandi believe in God?  These are the wrong questions,  God’s righteous wrath is poured out on sin. It doesn’t matter what you and I believe and what claims we make on our own. 2 Corinthians 5:21 states, “He (God) made him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
       John 14:6 says, “I (Jesus) am the way, the truth, and the life and no man (including Ghandi) can come unto the father (God) except by me (Jesus).  Now I’m a firm believer that scripture just says it, and this just says it!   Love is not measured by human effort or design but by a characteristic that exist by the Holy Spirit.  It is God produced and God driven.  A fruit of the Spirit…”Love, joy, peace,…” Spirit produced not you produced. 
       No greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends John 15:13.  BTW the words of Jesus.  Love is God’s just wrath poured out on sin, or he would not be God.  God in Jesus Christ (God in flesh) sent himself to die in our place because Love does win!

The Cross

        In the days to come, we will be faced with one of the greatest challenges of our lives.  Is the cross relevant?  Does it have a say in our lives and how we approach God?  The cross is and will always be offensive, but does that mean in its offensiveness that it doesn’t apply?  The cross was not meant as a focal point in our relationship with God, neither is heaven or hell; however, the focal point is the relationship that results from the cross.
        If you were faced with a cross in the days of Jesus, then it meant death.  Have you faced the cross?  Have you realized your death?  The cross is offensive because it takes death to accomplish its work.  Without the cross there is no possibility of life. 
        Jesus, God’s own son, even faced death.  Paul wrote in Philippians 2:8, “he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”  Jesus faced what was offensive and therefore, created the most offensive means by which we know God, death.
        Ghandi said that he would have been a Christian if it had not been for Christians.  Did Christians cause him to go to hell?  Did religion send him to hell? The cross sent him to hell.  Belief in something other than God is just means for His wrath.   Without death there is no life, in life you find that all true breath begins at the foot of the cross.  The cross is the end of self effort, and whatever means by which you are proceeding in self effort must needs to be found helpless at the foot of the cross, death.  Love wins at the cross!

Engines

        Engines have a specific purpose in how it is used.  The engine is not however the central focus of the car.  The central focus of the car is found in its purpose, which is to get you from point a to b and back again.  The car thus, gets you to where you are going.  I cannot claim this illustration for myself, Jaytee powered this info and its premise.  
         Just like the engine, the cross is not central to our relationship with God but it is the access by which we have it.  The cross is the engine to our relationship with God, without the cross there is no relationship and its result is a just and wrathful judgment of hell.  The cross like the engine gives us access to move forward in our relationship with God in intimacy.   The focal point of Christianity is your relationship with God, the cross gives you access to that relationship.  This is the purpose by which Jesus made his John 14:6 claim.
        Hebrews 4:16 gives us clear indication of how Jesus gives us access to a relationship with God,  “let us therefore, come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  You have access because the cross (the engine) propels you forward in your relationship with God to approach were no man dares to trod.  It took death to give you life, and it is in your death that you find life.  Believing in the offensive cross gives you access to life.  Love wins in relationships because the engine of cross fuels it.

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