Cross Centered Life

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ… Galatians 6:14

For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified… 1 Corinthians 2:2

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you probably know by now, I find myself “obsessed” or passionate (is the term I prefer) about certain topics quite often. One usually leads to another. I like to think God is teaching me these things. My tabernacle obsession lead to me to want to know more about Heaven and that left me with a passion for the gospel…that led me to pick up this book: Living the Cross Centered Life - Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing by C.J. Mahaney.

I have reread parts of this book numerous times…so many huge truths packed into this tiny treasure. I skimmed over and searched the pages, trying to decide what I wanted to share on here…what I wanted to look back upon with only a click of the mouse…what I wanted to remember. I could pull a bit from nearly every page, but that would either bore those who have read it or ruin it for those who have not. I decided rather to share a good amount from two portions of the book that impacted me the most. These parts are the ones that drew my sobbing heart to the foot of the cross more than ever before. He had to endure it all because of me. And I would rise praising Him because He did endure it...and He endured it instead of me.

C.J. explains with great clarity God’s holiness, man’s sinfulness, our need of a Savior and why only Jesus could be that for us. This book helped me understand big words and big concepts such as justification, sanctification, legalism and condemnation. But my heart changed the most…moved the closest to the cross somewhere in the middle where C.J. takes chapters to explain all Jesus endured from Gethsemane to his last breath.

Here are only small portions of two of those chapters:

From Chapter Six: Staring into the Cup - The Shock of Gethsemane

“Remove this cup,” Jesus pleads in the garden. Isaiah 51:17 shows us this cup in God’s extended hand – it’s “the cup of wrath,” and for those who drink from it, it’s “the cup of staggering.” The cup contains the full vehemence and fierceness of God’s holy wrath poured out against all sin, and we discover in Scripture that it’s intended for all of sinful humanity to drink. It’s your cup…and mine. No wonder that when Jesus stares into this detestable vessel, He stumbles to the ground.

“Yet not what I will, but what You will.” As we watch Jesus pray in agony in Gethsemane, He has every right to turn His tearful eyes toward you and me and shout, “This is your cup. You’re responsible for this. It’s your sin! You drink it.” This cup should rightfully be thrust into my hand and yours. Instead, Jesus freely takes it Himself…so that from the cross He can look down at you and me, whisper our names, and say, “I drain this cup for you – for you who have lived in defiance of Me, who have hated Me, who have oppressed Me. I drink it all…for you.”

This is what our sin makes necessary. This is what’s required by your pride and my pride, by your selfishness and my selfishness, by your disobedience and my disobedience. Behold Him…behold His suffering…and recognize His love.

From Chapter 8: The Scream of the Damned - Our Savior's Worst Torment

"Why have You forsaken Me?"
Jesus is experiencing what you and I should be receiving - His Father's full and furious wrath. He's experiencing what every other human being in history deserves and what He alone does not deserve. And He's experiencing it alone.

He who for all eternity has never been alone is now wholly abandoned. Such utter desolation has never even existed before in all eternity, because of the infinite love and fellowship of the Trinity, which can never be broken. But now the incarnate Son must be forsaken by the Father...because the Father is holy, and there in the Father's sight is "the most grotesque display of ugliness imaginable," as R.C. Sproul termed it. It's the monstrous sight of the unbound totality of human sin resting upon one Man.

Jesus doesn't just feel forsaken; He is forsaken...It isn't a deceptive feeling; it's reality. In Gethsemane, when Jesus looked into the cup, this is what He had seen. This is what had staggered Him.

Why alone? He's alone so that we might never be alone. He cries out to God, "Why have you forsaken Me?" so that you and I will never have to make a similar cry. He was cut off from His Father so that we can boldly say, "Nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus." He's forsaken so that we might be forgiven.

God, in abandoning His Son, is treating Jesus as a sinner so that He can treat you and me - who are sinners - as if were were righteous...all because of Jesus.