Part 2:-

Our common position on the cross makes the Jewish believer and the Gentile believer one Body of Christ.

And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby (Ephesians 2:16).

Our death with Christ on the cross frees us from the legal requirements of the Law of Moses.

Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. (Romans 7:4)

Death on the cross is an act of obedience to God our Father.

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:8).

The "Christians" who live in the flesh, serving themselves by using the things of Christ to their own advantage, are the enemies of the cross.

For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ (Philippians 3:18).

The true saint of God fixes his attention on Jesus, endures the death of the cross, and makes his pilgrimage toward the right hand of God.

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2).

The saints love the cross. It is painful and humiliating and it is despised by the world. It is a sharing in the sufferings of Christ. But the cross is the only path to joy, to peace, to victory over the world, over Satan, and over our flesh and self-will, to fruitfulness and dominion. The cross is the wisdom of God and the power of God. The cross can be seen and felt in the personality and ministry of the man or woman of God.

There is a reproach, a scandal associated with the cross of Christ. The person who gladly bears the shame of the cross is heading straight toward the throne of the Father in Heaven.

The cross is the means, and the only means, of destroying the self-seeking of the human personality. Ministry apart from the cross is self-willed, self-seeking, self-vaunting, self-cantered.

The cross is both the wisdom and the power of God Almighty.

The cross is God’s response to the self-centeredness of man. Religious people erect elegant structures in order to "glorify God." But God is glorified in the cross of Christ. Herod’s Temple was just that—Herod’s Temple, it was not God’s Temple. The same is true with all the striving of men.

Men build tabernacles but God builds the cross.

How wise is God! How superior in every way!

The true saint, as did Paul, beholds the whole world hanging on the cross. The first creation died with Christ. It has been finished.

The true saint is on the cross with Christ and beholds the world from his position of helplessness on the cross. The crucified saint looks constantly to the Lord for the eternal power of the Spirit of God. It is this incorruptible wisdom and power that gives life to the saint and overflows from him so that humanity is released from the chains of Satan.

The cross is our protection against deception. The believer who attempts to evade the cross will be deceived by Satan (Matthew 16:23). God Himself will send delusion on him (II Thessalonians 2:11).

There is no way around the cross. Whoever is unwilling to forsake all, to take up his cross and follow Jesus, is unworthy of the Kingdom of God. He cannot be a disciple.

The cross is a prison from which we cannot escape without breaking God’s laws, for it is God who has locked us up. The cross is a pinnacle. We are not to jump from it "by faith in God’s Word." It is a place of waiting, of restrictions, of suffering, of patience.

It is God’s will that we suffer in this confinement, this prison. It is God’s will that our most intense desires are withheld from us. It is God's will that we are required to keep serving Him in situations that are frustrating us and that keep us praying every moment, day and night.

The believer who forces his way out of God’s prison may gratify his flesh for a season but his end will be grief, disillusionment, anguish, disappointment, loss of fruitfulness, loss of authority, loss of the Kingdom of God. He who saves his life surely shall lose it.

He who loses his life for Christ’s sake and the Gospel’s certainly shall find his life again, and eternal fruitfulness with it. His life will be transformed, having been blended eternally with the life of Christ. His fruit will be equal to that of the obedient Abraham—it shall multiply forever.

The cross is the glory, the boast of the Christian. It brings him down to helplessness. From the cross he arises in Christ renewed, transformed, vindicated totally, ruler over all.

How about you, dear reader?

Will you go to the cross?

Or will you attempt to serve Christ in your own manner?

The cross is the path, the only path, to the desires of your heart.

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