- Overcomer Literature Trust
- Swindon
- Wiltshire
What does the Cross stand for?
By David Tryon.
The cross stands for loss and not for gain. “Whatever was to my profit” Paul wrote, “I now consider loss for the sake of Christ”. He was referring to religious things which had given him satisfaction apart from Christ. How often we seek this sort of gain in our Christian lives, seeking to establish a record of Christian service and usefulness which we can regard with complacency and satisfaction. When we learn to glory in the cross, we shall cease for ever from counting our gains in that way.
The cross stands for hopelessness, not self-confidence. Was there ever a more terrible cry of hopelessness than this, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” The world’s way is the way of self-confidence. Many Christians are trying to make progress the world’s way. But the cross cuts us off from all that, and we must learn that the place of utter hopelessness in ourselves is the place from which God’s power flows.
The cross stands for helplessness and not self-sufficiency. Can you conceive of anything more helpless than a man nailed on a cross? “He cannot save himself”, they mocked. The world’s way is strength and self-sufficiency. They have not learned that God’s mighty life and power grow in the soil of human weakness, that when we are weak then we are strong.
The cross cuts us off from all self-sufficiency and leads us to glory only in the weakness which makes room for God to work.
The cross stands for folly and not for wisdom. What folly the cross must have seemed in the face of the claims of Jesus. “This is the King of the Jews”. Man in his natural blindness is still incapable of seeing the wisdom of God’s way. The Christian will often find himself like a seeing man in the country of the blind, the one fool amongst many wise men. The cross cuts us off from attempting to compete with the world’s wisdom and makes us willing to be fools for Christ’s sake.
The cross stands for shame and not for respect and applause. The cross meant shame unspeakable to Jesus, and it was our sins that brought Him there. The cross must cut us off completely from self-applause and self-congratulation, or any seeking for applause and congratulation from the world. ‘My sinful self my only shame.’ How can we glory in anything we are in ourselves, when our sins brought Him to that place of shame. The cross cuts us off from all such glorying. We ‘lay in dust life’s glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red life that shall endless be’.
May the Lord give us some small glimpse of the meaning behind these amazing words, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross.”
* * * * * * * * *