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Devotionals
Preserved by Integrity
Taking a Towel
Raised Up by the Lord
Going Hard After Christ
The Power of the Church
Rekindling a Romance for Jesus Christ
The Wonderful Cross
When is it too late?
Sowing the Gospel
Abiding in Christ
The Wonderful Cross
"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me; and th elife which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me."
Galatians 2:20
For many months now the Holy Spirit has placed a single message upon my heart. It is the message of the "cross". I have been asking the Lord to unpack this incredible message and reveal all of its glory to me. God by His grace has only just begun to give me a slight glimpse of all that is to be know of the wonderful cross.
An amazing reality that scripture declares is we have been crucified with Christ. Crucifixion was the form of execution used to put our Lord Jesus to death. When we are born again we share in Christ's death on the cross, that is we are brought into relationship with the cross, we identify with His death. It was our old nature that was mastered and dominated by sin that found its death on the cross. When we associate with Christ's death by being crucified with Christ we die to death. That is to say that we die to our sinful nature which breeds corruption, we die to a Christ-less eternity.
Because the very core of our souls were tainted, stained, and saturated with sin, nothing short of something as radical as a crucifixion could remedy our depraved condition.
There is no hope in self-reformation, self-righteousness, or self-improvement, the only solution is to crucify our sinful self and find a whole new life in Christ. Now whenever death is mentioned in scripture, it is always followed with a message of life.
Because the cross brings your lifeless days to an end by crucifying your corrupted nature, you are called to cease from striving in the flesh. You have died to the law of works, to self-righteousness, to religious legalism; YOU are DEAD! Your only duty is to draw near to Christ Jesus and rest in your new life in Christ. This is not something that you develop, earn, work for, or create yourself. Resurrection life is something that only Christ can bestow upon you. Experience and be penetrated by the resurrection life that Christ imparts to you!
How wondrous the cross of Christ is, for it is there that I died to everything that kept me from Heaven and intimacy with my Lord, my Jesus. Cry out for God’s grace to minister to your heart the words of this hymn, "The Wonderful Cross" written by Isaac Watts.
All who gather here by grace draw near and bless Your name
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all
O the wonderful cross, O the wonderful cross
Bids me come and die and find that I may truly live
O the wonderful cross
Grow in the grace of God,
Kyle Shimazaki
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