The Power of the Cross by Casting CrownsSample

The past that held regret over our head is gone. Now our chains are ashes, chains that once were rusted on. We are forgiven, no longer lost. Now we are living in the power of the Cross.

Resting in the finished work of Jesus requires planting into my spirit his Word, which in turn feeds confidence in him. If we let emotions drive our faith, we’re going to need about 10 tent revivals a week to keep us in the game. So many of us are still ensnared by fear, failure, and weakness because we don’t in the truth of what Jesus did for us. Instead, we slog through the feelings of our circumstances to tell us whether we’re saved. It’s a dangerous place to live.

It’s easy to look for circumstances and actions to convince us of our salvation. We start looking for signs and wonders to convince us we’re saved. We start looking for other people to tell us how good we are. Even when we’re convinced we’re saved, we compare ourselves to others to gauge how saved we are compared to everybody else based on behavior. God gave us his Word to remind us the work of salvation is complete only because of Jesus. Our job is to surrender and to follow Him. He writes all these things to us so we won’t sin, but if we do sin, we have an advocate with a father, Jesus Christ the righteous one.

We are alive in Christ. If we can grasp this point and begin to rest in what he’s finished for us, that’s the moment we finally look up from ourselves and you see a hurting world. We see those same lies that were trapping us are trapping everybody else. The people whose lifestyles and attitudes once made us angry now look different. We start seeing them the way Jesus sees them because Jesus has been your counsel.

Once Jesus has our attention and we start seeing through his eyes, it’s much more difficult to be angry with someone we know he died for and loves.

I have not concentrated on this point enough in my life. I’ve spent more time spinning my wheels to nail down the fact that he saved me forever. I’ve tried to find by means other than his Word the measure of just how seriously messed up the world is. Mainstream and social media haven’t helped; rather, they have made everything worse. Now, I’ve noticed many believers are angry with people we’ve never even seen. When we live in the power of the cross, it infuses our every thought and action. We see as Jesus sees. We think as Jesus thinks. We talk as Jesus talks.

Jesus always told the truth to people, but he told them the truth in love. Even before he went to the Cross, he lived under its power because the Cross was the very reason he came. That same power of the Cross is how we see as he sees, and it’s the only way we’ll ever look as he looks.