Getting Away From The Cross

[irishman]

Getting Away from the Cross!

    Before we can ever truly be called a Christian, we must meet Jesus at the cross.  We come to Him by faith, but with our eyes and hearts on the cross of Calvary.  It is of the utmost importance that we begin at Calvary, but it is also imperative that we do not spend the rest of our Christian life hanging around the foot of the cross!  Remember that Jesus Himself assigned the care of his mother to John (the beloved disciple) and they left the cross, never to return there again.   That is what we must do; our Christian walk begins at Calvary, but we must walk away from there and begin to serve the Lord.  Just as Calvary is/was a one-time event, so it is with us; there is no need to linger there once we have received the gift of eternal life, and the forgiveness of sins.  Too many times we fail to go out into the world and share the gospel with others, who have not yet met Jesus at Calvary; we keep the message hidden, and secure it unto ourselves when it was meant to be shared.  Sure it is precious; of course we love it, but we are to leave it, and go out into the highways and the byways of the land, and seek, with our Lord, the lost.   Golgotha (John 17:9) is well lit with the lights of Christian men and women, and a world of darkness surrounds it.  Let’s pull ourselves away from the cross, and go “into all the world, and preach the gospel…” but let us never forget the cross and the blessing it is to mankind.

    Jesus comforts us with a gentle command “Come unto me”…and indeed we must to find rest, but there is also another command that follows, “Go ye into all the world…” and here we also find rest.   We find great peace in Christ both at Calvary, and in the field of service, where we rest in the Holiness of His will.   The same Lord that bids us to “Come” also bids us to “Go’; we must be obedient in both.   “Come” is a word that draws us in…“Go” is a word that send us out--the one precedes the other.  We must come to Jesus before we are ordained to go out from him unto all the world for the purpose of the Gospel.  
 

[ASongOfDegrees]

Irishman, have you ever read the little book Born Crucified? I highly recommend it. Here's a link if you are interested:

 

http://www.pembrokebiblechapel.com/pdf/BornCrucified.pdf

[swathdiver]

Great Preachin' Marty!

 

Today a dear friend called my wife for the first time in months.  We shared the gospel with her several years ago, she did not understand it at all and thought we were condemning her to hell and shunned us for years.  Through facebook we watched her young daughter be devoured by the world and trial after trial has made her literally homeless.  We pray for them often and pray again that we can get them up to our place this weekend to explain better the Gospel and maybe even take them to church on Sunday.

 

We had some other family over this weekend for a birthday party and am sorry some left early, before I could share the gospel with them.  However, my good friend did talk with one about the Lord but recognized that her sin of booze and her excuses for it showed him she was not ready to quit or hear the Good News.  He told her that bluntly too I heard.  She appreciated his direct approach and hope we'll have another chance next month at the next birthday party and then Thanksgiving dinner and then Christmas Eve dinner.

 

There's so many that need Christ but look everywhere else and never find anything satisfying.