Many times I have wanted to read the Bible all the way through. I have a copy of the One Year Bible and always started with the best of intention, however, I don't think I have made it a week in keeping to the "plan". So I decided that maybe I would break off some chunks - like Psalms as an example or the Old Testament. Still, I did not stick to that. So, now I have chosen to cut it down even more. I have decided to study the last seven days of Christ's life. In the process of doing so, it was important for me to reflect of the significance of these days and the significance of the Cross. So I spent this evening doing that. As I researched, I came across a book called My Utmost For His Highest - a devotional book by Oswald Chambers. In the book, Chambers writes about the need for the sacrifice of Christ. I was so spiritually calibrated (yes, I just made up that term) by the readings that I thought I would blog about them.
On November 20 and 21 Chambers writes:
“Beware of the pleasant view of the Fatherhood of God. God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That sentiment has no place whatsoever in the New Testament. The only ground on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ. To put forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blaspheme. The only ground on which God can forgive sin and reinstate us in His favor is through Christ and in no other way. Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony of Calvary. It is possible to take the forgiveness of sin and our sanctification with simplicity of faith and to forget at what enormous cost to God that it was all made ours. Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. It cost God the Cross of Jesus Christ before He could forgive sin and remain a Holy God. When once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vice, constrained by the love of God.”
He goes on to say on November 21:
“Never build your preaching or forgiveness on the fact that God is our Father and that He will forgive us because He loves us. It is untrue to Jesus Christ’s revelation of God. It makes the cross unnecessary and the redemption ‘much ado about nothing.’ If God does forgive sin, it is because of the death of Christ.”
OK, so this calibrated me in a big way. To the point of tearing up a little bit. It really made me step back and think about the importance and necessity of the Cross. Don't get me wrong, as a christian, I understand the significance of the Cross. I have always sort of taken it on faith that as I have accepted Jesus Christ as my one and only Savior and I have asked for my sins to be washed away by the blood of the lamb, that I was free. This is all true. However, what generally goes through my mind is that God loves me and that by his amazing grace he forgives me. It is so much deeper than that though. God loves everybody, but He is not going to save everybody. Love does not save. Sin required a payment, and that payment was in the person of Jesus Christ, the Lamb, the one from among the flock, the Man who died instead of us so that we could have everlasting life, so that we could have life in the age to come.
So anyway, that's where today's study in the word started and that's where it ended. I will spend more time this evening reflecting on the Cross and thanking God for the sacrifice he made for a fallen world.
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