Crucified With Christ

The concept of the cross epitomizes the spirit that would solve the problems of conflict in homes, marriages, business, governments, affairs of nations and every other human relationship. Jesus suffered the horrors and pain and ignominy related to the cross and paid the price in obedience to the will of His heavenly Father. The secret of the Christian life is the cross. The essence of the Christian life is the cross. Jesus expressed it this way: Luk 9:23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

Christianity in general has romanticized the concept of the cross. We put it on our church buildings, on our bibles, our pulpits, our head stones, our jewelry and everything pertaining to Christianity. Even as we do so, we fail to recognize what it truly represents; and that is death. It would be just as accurate to use a depiction of a noose, or an electric chair or a gas chamber, or any other symbol of death as decorations and jewelry. The cross is offensive to the natural man because it is a symbol of humiliation and death. Now the fact is there was much more involved about the cross than just death. The complete process of the cross started with the betrayal, the arrest, the abuse, the false accusations, the reviling of the church people, the hatred, the humiliation, the rejection, the torture, the attack, and the mockery; the total helplessness to defend, the excruciating pain, the horrible taste of death, the consignment to death and finally the end which is death itself.

When we as God's people realize what the cross really means, we will welcome death - death to self because to die to self (experience the cross) is real freedom, real liberty and real joy in the Lord and power. The scripture says, Joh 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. Only through death do we really bring forth fruit that remains

In I Corinthians 4:10-13 Paul here expresses what the cross truly means.
For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.
We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised.
Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place;
And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it:
Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.

You will not submit to the death of the cross until you are so desperately sick of yourself that you cannot stand it any longer, and even then, not unlike myriads of believers before you and me who have made this horrendous journey will dragged kicking and screaming to Calvary. You will think many times before you get there that you will literally die before you arrive. This is a journey, not for the fainthearted or the cowardly, or the spineless Christian. It is only the Christian who is desperate for God's best that will finally transcend the hill Calvary and receive the power that only comes through death to the enemy self and the rest that comes from giving all to God. Now to be clear on this part of the process, there may be an initial launching into the life that is Christ, but as the apostle Paul said, "I die daily," it is a daily walk with the Saviour. There are many things that God will permit in our life that will bring the death over and over again.

The analogy is that we experience what Jesus did on our path to the cross: the rejection, the humiliation, the abuse, the mockery, the physical suffering and other things that he suffered. God knows what it will take in every individual to bring death, and then as it was with Jesus, a burial, that is a time of silence and nothingness. A time when no one looks to you, no one regards you, no one consults with you. You are hid away in the tomb of silence and loneliness.

Now the cross and the tomb are not the things that are the desirable goals here. Resurrection is the goal; this is where the freedom, and the peace that passeth understanding is; the miraculous power of the living Christ. There is no other way to have the mighty power of God upon our life and ministry except through this process of death, burial and resurrection - the Cross. As long as you are satisfied with the status quo of just getting by and trusting your own talents and strength, you will not have God's best. You may well have to come to the place where you cry out in desperation; "O God I don't care what it costs me, I want your best."

Several years ago the Northgate Baptist Church in McAlester, Oklahoma extended a call to me to be the associate pastor. I was young and green and had no experience in such an endeavor and was very excited about the prospect of being full time in God's work. After meeting with the men of the church and the pastor I was hired by the church and moved my family to McAlester. Not long after we were settled in, Bro Garret, the pastor of the church, asked me to preach the last sermon of an in house revival that he was preaching. I was scared stiff and started praying about what I should preach. After a time of seeking I felt that God was leading me to preach a sermon on hell. As a student at Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri I had spent many hours in the library researching every bit of material that I could find on the subject. I searched and read every scripture that I could find in the word that pertained to hell. I believed that if I were going to be a preacher that I should know everything that I could about a place that people are destined for who die without Christ.

I was terrified about the prospect of preaching such an important service and spent hours and hours in study and seeking God. I was alone praying face down on the floor and had been there for some time when God opened my understanding and showed me something that transformed my life. I didn't see a vision, or hear bells, or see an angel, but in my minds eye, I saw the Lord on the cross for me, and for the first time I realized what my sin did to him. I knew that he was there because of my sin and if broke me. I don't know how long I was there crying out to God, but I felt as though I could not stand what God had showed to me that day. Someone said, "If I bear my burden alone, it will weight me down to death." That is how I felt that day. It was almost more than I could stand, I stayed there communing with God and mourning over my sin for several hours. When I preached that sermon, it was not in my power and strength but in God's. I know also that God was preparing me for the ministry that he had called us to there in McAlester. God gave me and my wife the most fruitful time of our lives at that church.

I never told anyone what had happened to me because I didn't fully understand it myself, but I knew that God had changed me. For the first time in my life, I was able to forget myself and feel at ease around people. For the first time in my life, I knew what it meant to forget my own feelings and feel for someone else. When I saw the Lord, my life was changed. I don't mean to say that I didn't do any wrong after that, but God did something in my life that I will never forget. Some men call it identification with Christ in his death burial and resurrection. Call it what you may, when God calls a man to a work, he equips him for that work; God will not be debtor to any man.

I heard a preacher a few years ago say in the pulpit; "I had an experience that changed my life." He stated that he didn't fully understand what happened but that he knew that he was different afterwards. Isaiah had the experience when he saw the Lord spoken of in Isaiah chapter six and it changed him. The same thing changed Peter and Paul. I am not talking about Pentecostalism or a second blessing but a new vision, the preparation for what God has for a man to do. Dr. Jack Hyles tells of a similar experience when he spent three days and nights on his father's grave. Dr. Dean Miller gives testimony of his experience when he was about to assume his first pastorate and God met him and transformed and changed his life. There are many other testimonies of other men who went through this death and into the powerful life of the Lord Jesus Christ. What do you need from God Today?