Deserve nothing but death!

We need to remind ourselves where we’ve come from so that we can truly appreciate where we’re going! Christ’s Cross should remind us, “You are guilty and deserve nothing but death!” But then it also asserts, “Christ has died for your sins, loving you beyond belief, forgiving you, and bestowing upon you His gift of eternal righteousness.”

Now, let’s consider what this means. We’re exposed, condemned and humbled for our many sins—arrogance, denial, self-justification, self-righteousness, self-deception, our self-centered motives, self-entitlement, self-promotion, selfishness, and the abuse and manipulation of others. The Cross leaves us without excuse or rationalization.

However, Christ loves us too much to leave us to stew in our corrupt juices. He opens our minds to the radical message of the Cross and frees us from sin, self-absorption, self-elevation, the struggle of trying to prove ourselves to both self and the world, blindness, bitterness, jealousy, and the wearisome burden of image-management.

It’s God’s gift to us, and we must never suppose we can earn it. A man named Simon proposed to buy one of God’s gifts, and Peter sternly corrected him:

"May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin" (Acts 8:20-23).

When we fail to see that we are unable to buy or earn God’s gifts, it means that we’re utterly blind to both the depths of our sins and the transcendence and love of a God who can’t be bought. It also means that we’re pretty stuck on ourselves—not a sin that God takes lightly.

Knowing that we’re so undeserving and yet so incredibly beloved, we increasingly (it’s a process!) find ourselves free to put others’ needs before our own. We no longer need to be defensive about our true status, because we’ve come to accept the fact that we’re nothing without Christ. We no longer need to denigrate others in order to lift ourselves. Because we no longer require their love and approval, we’re freed to love them. People no longer have the same power over us, and so we need not resent or fear them! Slights and rejections can now become occasions for laughter.

But how do we appropriate the healing benefits of the Cross? It always starts with trust:

Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. (Psalm 37:3-6)

But don’t leave out obedience. Trust and obedience are inseparable. If we trust, we’ll obey:

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. (Psalm 1:2-3)

Trust and obedience do not exist independently, anymore than I can have a functioning brain without a heart. This doesn’t mean that we’re saved by our good deeds, as if we can earn something from God and convert His gift into a wage, something we deserve (Rom. 4:1-8). However, if we truly believe, we will act on those beliefs. Take, for example, the man who goes to a trusted doctor but throws away the prescribed pills. He then explains that he trusts his doctor so much that he doesn’t have to take the pills. This, of course, is ridiculous! If we trust God, we do what He tells us to do (John 14:21-24)! Also, if we trust God, we’re free from proving ourselves trustworthy. What a relief!

Daniel Mann