The Majesty of the Cross

It is 4:28 am on a Saturday morning and for the life of me, I have no idea why I am wide awake. This happened to me yesterday as well, but it was to my advantage because I was able to get to work ultra early and get off before the traffic started to build. at any rate, being up and fully alert without coffee on a Saturday morning does not make me happy but until my body realizes that it needs at least 4 more hours of sleep before I go and tutor all day long, I think I will blog for a bit.

I have been pondering on several things lately. I keep telling myself that I need to write more. I love putting the thoughts I have down on paper. It's almost therapeutic, but for some reason I just can't seem to find the time. Maybe this is why I am awake so early on a Saturday morning. So not knowing what to write about I went back to some old blogs to see what I had written about and found a list of things I said I would blog on last May (10 months ago) and have not. The list (seee May 2011 blog), was enought to keep me blogging for a full year. I realized none of those things have really burned into my soul as much as the topic I will blog on this morning. And that is the absolute beauty of the cross, the beauty of blood stained wood and the majesty and glory it represents. For those of you I tutor, that would have just made a really great thesis statement!

We have been singing a new song at church. We have been singing this song for quite some time. But for some reason the last time we sang it, I got to these words and I thought to myself "how can this be beautiful"?

As crimson covered
Over sinless hands
Your majesty
For all to see
In raging storms and quiet cloudless days....
...Beautiful Jesus

Have you ever seen the movie the Passion of the Christ, or truly looked upon a true rendition of that crucifixion? There is not much beauty there, to the inexperienced believer there is not much majesty there either. If you look close enough, you will see deep love, and if you gaze just a little longer you will understand the words of that centurion in Luke 23:47 - Now when the centurion saw what had happened, he began praising God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent.”

To understand the beauty of the moment you have to understand that crucifixion was usually only done to criminals. What crime did Jesus do? He loved, he healed, he forgave, he fed, he supplied, he caused Lazarus to be raised from the dead. What had he done that was so horrid that he deserved to be butchered, beaten, spit upon and then hung on a cross "for all to see"? He didn't do anything at all. He was just radical enough to be dangerous. He was fulfilling scripture. He was saving the world. But he was no criminal. So looking back at my thoughts on this song, I was just thinking about three basic truths that hang in the beautiful, majesty of that cross.

1. Love. It was for love and no other reason that Jesus did what he did. Terry and I were in Austin last weekend visiting the kids. We were traveling around Sunday morning before Terry and I had to leave to come back home and somehow we got on the topic of missions. John said, he didn't see the point in the going to another country and invoking your belief system on them. I looked at him and said "love compels us to do things we don't understand". It was for love that Jesus came, it was for love he died. Pure and simple. John 3:16 - for God so LOVED the world... He truly does love us! And once you get a glimpse of that love, you feel it deep down inside of you. You don't just sing it in a song, because it compels you to look at everything around you in a different light. Your never the same again once you get this simple truth down in side of you. The reason people lay their lives down everyday for others is based out of nothing short of love. You won't and probably can't save something you don't have passion for. Jesus had passion for all - that alone was his only motive - L-O-V-E.

2. Forgiveness. When Jesus said "it is finished", he meant it. Never again would we have rules and sacrifices that helped us to get to God. It was over - on that cross hung the forgiveness of the world, "for all to see". I drive throughout the City of Houston quite a bit. Depending on my route to and/or from I get to see two huge crosses within our city. One is the St. Jospeh Hospital downtown and the other is on Beltway 8 West. And while these are both beautiful, they just don't do it for me as much as when I look into my mind and see the beauty and majesty of that one cross that set me free. God is not mad at you, He is not waiting for you to mess up so his can put his thumb of judgment on your life (been there, done that) and He is not ever going to stop loving you. The Bible is really clear on this. Romans 10:9-10: that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. If we truly are forgiven, we live our lives like we are forgiven, we are easily led to forgive others and we understand that nothing we can do on our own can save us.

3. Hope. Love bears all things, believes all things, HOPES for all things, endures all things, love never fails (1 Cor. 13:7-8). My hope is in this one thing, that Jesus is my savior, he loves me beyond measure and his promises are true and for me. This has been a year of struggle health wise for me. I get well only to relapse and feel like I take two steps forward and one step back. It has been a journey that I have not enjoyed much. I wish I could say I have embraced this struggle, but at times the pain and exhaustion of dealing with it is just too much to bear on my own. My hope still is unwavering that God is faithful, even in my trial and circumstance. Even as I type this today, there is a song playing in the background which says "let hope arise". Hope is what pulls us through these tough times. Our hope is in Jesus, and all that he did when he gave his life. My favorite scripture this month is Psalm 118:17, I will not die, but live, And tell of the works of the LORD.

Three simple truths. Yet for most of us, the simplicity that brings majesty to the cross is just too much to understand. We always think there needs to be some formula to make something work. Or that God has a hidden agenda someplace. There is no hidden agenda. Love - the basic ingredient for the cross. Forgiveness, the need for man to have it, because we can not save ourselves. Hope, that what we believe and who we believe is rock solid and never wavering.

And with that, I have heavy eyelids and think I will grab another hour or two of sleep before my morning starts in full force. Peace be still my friends, embrace the majesty of the King of Kings today. --Peace be still....

Hardship and Blessings working together?

The radio is playing a song right now that is just ministering to me in so many ways. Because I have always been an advocate that our walk with the Lord is not about our comfort but about His glory, I am not always popular when some comes whining to me about where is God in the midst of the trial. I have just spent almost 2 years walking through trials, health issues, financial issues, and everything else the devil could throw. I literally read the book of Job at least 10 times to find encouragement and truth in our circumstances. Really - Cindy - Job?? I agree, Job is not the first place our "make me comfortable" faith wants to read but there are some great truths about walking things out in there that you will not find anyplace else.

So what if your blessings do not come in masses and miraculous ways to let you know that God is there? Does it mean he is not? What if you have to cry, lose sleep, walk it out in faith and find confidence that God is able? Does it make God less sovereign? NO! He is always going to be sovereign, faithful, loving, merciful, gracious, victorious and a million other adjectives that make God. I don't have answers as to why some people get instanious miracles, deliverance or answers. I'm not God, but I know God and his character. I have experienced Him, I have felt His presence in my life even when I questioned where it was. I knew that there would be victory, freedom, healing, restoration and redemption. I didn't know when I would see it, but I knew it would come because God promised. He didn't give me a date, he gave me a word and a promise and once you have that Word -- nothing can penetrate or break it off you.

Our walks are different. For some faith is just a part of our fiber. I wish I was like that. I have a friends that do not seem to have any problem at all taking God at face value, I'm a little more analytical and sometimes am sorry to say I demand proof. I'm not proud of it, many times I just sit in my the middle of my small living room floor and find myself crying out and then apologizing for not trusting Him more. I get impatient in the waiting much of the time and have to flight my flesh every single day to sit back and wait for God to work in areas I have been praying over for years. I am amazed that sometimes God has moved, stirred or acted and somehow I missed it, but then again I missed the fact that through the impatience, tears, etc., something inside me is different.

I have been camping out on the topic of "avoidable pain" this week. I have had to ask myself how much easier would things have been if I had not put myself in circumstances to avoid the pain of consequences for my actions. I also believe that this type of pain pushes us to what my wonderful friend Diane Sample says is called"unavoidable prayer". And that my friends is the answer. Most people I know who have experienced great pressure and faith trials have learned the secret to praying without ceasing that we read about in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. If you read it in context we are to rejoice always, and give thanks in everything, and PRAY WITHOUT CEASING. It does not say rejoice when things are good, and give thanks when God blesses you without merit. When things are hard, when times are tough, when your health fails, when your friends and family seem to abandon you, at all times and in all things, practice unavoidable prayer because that is what is going to get results. I'm not saying it's easy, the disciples could not do it, but it is possible to learn to pray and out of that prayer comes everything.

One of my key scriptures for 2011 is out of Psalm 91: 16-18: Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him;I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him, And show him My salvation.

Every time I read that I am reminded, how faithful he is. So in closing this blog this morning I decided to do a little back story on Laura Story. She is the writer of that song that I am loving so much these days. What causes someone to write such profound lyrics, unless of course they have experienced some pain that God has brought them through and out of that you can minister it through song? So the back story is that shortly after she married her high school sweetheart the lives of the newlyweds were shattered when they were told that her husband had a brain tumor. The result of that diagnosis would leave them trusting God to a point of utter dependence. She wrote Blessings because has experienced walking out two years of her young life with her husband and trusting God every step of the way - even unto death. She knows that He is in fact all that He says He is. God brought them through it and today she writes out of that victory in a way that can only minister to those of us who have walked through or are in those places where it does not seem like God is moving.

I thank God for the past two years. I have learned some things that have forever wrecked me. Primarily I have learned that I can confidently trust the Lord in all things, even when I don't see the outcome. He is the keeper of my life and the lifter of my head and I will rejoice always at that!

Blessings -- Laura Story

Because what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise