The Message of The Cross

I've been thinking much with regards to repentance and Christian discipleship over the last couple of weeks and months.  I have thought about my experiences and what I learned in the past.  Some of what I learned in the past is for me today the foundation I live my life on and what I build my faith upon but equally so, there was much that became a great hindrance to me as well.  One thing that I’m growing increasingly aware of is this divine tension of sorts.  We live in this tension between two worlds.  We have the Kingdom of God and we have life as we know it and see it here on this earth.  There is this tension that we experience and I don’t believe for one moment that we’re supposed to eradicate this tension, necessarily.  Let me explain.  We have these two realities; we have the fall of creation and God’s Kingdom invading earth, the greater reality being God’s Kingdom invading earth.   The more we see in our life God’s Kingdom invading, the greater the tension will be.  Some seek congruence in life but I have to ask the question, to what? To what Kingdom would you want your inner life to be congruent with?  If you want your inner life to be congruent with this world in which we live then we will find absolutely no tension and so then therefore there will exist no real struggle or battle but if you desire your inner life to be congruent with God’s Kingdom our flesh will respond to this growing tension as God’s Kingdom invades and permeates into every fibre of our being.  To what do you want to be congruent with?

I think people mean well when they minister to the broken, they really do but for the most part many people just want to comfort the broken and take away their pain but as they do so they might actually be getting in the way of what God is doing.  It is possible that it is God disturbing the comfortable that He might bring the broken and hurting closer to Him so that He could ultimately bring about His purposes in their life.

 

Romans 8:38, 39

New International Version (NIV)

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We will either move forward from this place bound by shame and self hatred or we will move forward from this place resting in the love of our God.  The Christian faith IS about change regardless of whether a person is gay or straight, the very message of the gospel is one of transformation and of God’s Kingdom invading the darkness of sin that we might gain freedom from sin.  And lest we forget the whole message of the cross it has nothing to do with whom or what we are and it has everything to do with who Jesus Christ is and what He has done for us.  When we become secure in our identity and in our salvation in Christ we are then free to live as Christ and embark on this journey of discipleship and this journey of becoming the men and women that God created us to be in our entirety.