Today as i read scripture, the thought of life without Christ & the Cross dawned on me. I was reading about all the animal sacrifices that God required in the OT which is symbolic of the ultimate sacrifice Christ paid on the cross. As I began to think about how that pointed to Christ I wondered what if there had never been an "annointed one" to take up our inquites and be slaughtered for our evil. I know what life with Christ & the Cross is like because I am living it today, yet I still cannot fathom it all. But this time I wanted to think about it in the opposite way hoping that as I wrote God would illuminate even more why Christ & the Cross is imperative to appreciate and understand.
Awed by his stupendous humiliation and exalted glory, without Christ & the Cross existence is vain. Life would have no implication and we would be endlessly depraved. The anguish and sorrows would be ours to bear & cursed we are; God will declare. A curse is the will that calamity and immoral doom befall on an individual. Without Christ & the Cross that is our destiny. The crushing of our transgressions would never fall upon another so we would grudgingly wait for that Day of indignant Judgment. The perfect love would never be; yet God would still be worthy. Without Christ & the Cross the redemption of man would never coexist; all souls would live just to perish without bliss. Iniquity would suffocate and evil would reign. The corrosion of wounds would paralyze peace, there would be no hope and not one chain would be released. We would forever be objects of God’s wrath waiting to be slaughtered only that justice may be apportioned. Not one, no not one would be accounted righteous and there would be no intercession for the wicked. Without Christ & the Cross we would remain famished, we would remain parched, we would remain unheard, we would never find, we would never receive, and we would be cut off from the splendid presence of God. Compassion would be desolate and oppression would have its way; the debt of sin would be ours to pay. The lost would never find, the blind would never perceive, the deaf would never hear, hardened hearts is all that God would see. “Beautiful are the feet of those who carry the Gospel” that is what God declare, but without Christ & the Cross there is no Gospel to bear.
God I know that our unrighteousness maginifies your righteousness. (Romans 3:5)
It magnifies how graceful you are and how unworthy we truly are. It illuminates the truth that man is not the center of the Gospel. It is not the Gospel of man but rather the Gospel of Christ. I pray that as we walk in the abundance of your mercy and grace that you would reveal to us and help us to completely grasp the nature of what happened on that Cross. Oh God without it, without your son we are lost, we are barren. Forgives us for our lack of knowledge, forgive us for our slothfullness, forgive us for our ignorance father, forgive us for every thought, every unrighteous deed, every evil meditation, every unwilling desire. God wrestle us to the ground and do whatever it takes to conform us into your likeness. Complete your work in us so that on the day of Judgment we hear "well done my good and faithful servant" LOVE
