Christian Living
The Message And The Messenger
The Cross, the Message, what do we mean?
The Cross is that place where righteousness and sin intersected. Sin and righteousness was once again divided. There was no more interbreed; mingling sin with righteousness, mixing the Word with sin, or cross-pollinating traditions with the Word. At the Cross is where we first see the light and our burdens is rolled away according to one singer. The Cross was where Jesus the messenger of God was put to death. He was because of His Message received capital punishment according to Roman law. The Cross was of wood but not too heavy or bulky to be carried by a strong man. They crucified or executed Jesus on the cross where He was left to die because of the Message.
What is a message? A message is a communication, tidings, or information given. Communications are utterances, writings, broadcastings, speaking or interchanges of some information or data. Tidings are news, information or gossip. Information is news; reports, notices, or messages and knowledge containing facts, evidence, details, statistics, or data.
Who is the Messenger? The messenger is the courier, envoy, minister, herald, runner, emissary, angel, or prophet. The messenger carries or brings the message that has been or is being conveyed. The messenger depending upon their influence will in one way or another effect the message. They also may affect the message either positively or negatively. Influence means that they have the power authority, control, command, esteem, prominence, prestige and reputation to impress, compel, urge, shape, convince, persuade, or motivate the one the message comes to.
Why the Messenger? It all goes back to the Creation. Everything goes back to the Creation. We must understand the battle. Why do we battle today to give the message of Jesus Christ, Him Crucified, the Cross, and the Resurrection? Are there so many messages or messengers? Many questions roam the earth and why? As in the days of Jesus persecution is coming back again; are we really willing to die like He did? Or do are just playing around as the messengers of Jesus Christ? Sometimes the victim’s hands and feet were tied to the cross with cord, but in most instances the more cruel form of punishment was to drive nails through their hands and feet. This is the punishment they subjected Jesus to as a form of humiliation.
Why did Christ come and what was He trying to do here in the earth? Most people really do not understand what they believe. They throw out what they want to eat on and what they don’t want to apply to their hearts. They fight the work of Christ. They neglect the work done as Jesus walked the earth. They fight each other through blasphemy; a total disrespect for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, and the Father. They called the truth a lie and a lie the truth. The truth is they want to be recognized and remembered as one that is important when it’s just not important for them to be known. The message we carry is the love given and shown by the one that created mankind.
Not only is the Message of the Cross that of love but peace, joy, and righteousness in the Holy Ghost. The Message is total and honorable obedience of man to the Creator. The Message is, can we all come together and bring reverence, praise and glory to the Creator of man. The Message is can we do what we were created to do in the beginning. Many have gone away from the first order of the Creator. The Message of the Cross is about total obedience and commitment to the Creator. The Cross was the most degradable way to die for man in the earth at that time. It is as the death penalty is today. The Cross showed that a man was submitted to die for what they believed in and did. A thief stole, a liar lied, but Jesus was obedient all the way to the Cross.
The Message of the Cross is my life preached. It is saying what am I willing to die for? What am I willing to give up for what I believe in? Are we willing to go all the way with God? Are we willing to give up everything to follow Him? Am I really sure that it is God that I am giving my all and all to? We must sell out all to follow Christ. He went all the way. Adam only went part of the way. It wasn’t long after he was given things in the earth that he forgot his purpose and call. He birth disobedience in the earth that had originated in Heaven and fallen down to the man. God created man to be what Satan had been in heaven.
It’s like two brothers fighting for power, authority, and respect. Who should get it and who should have the most of this reverential power, authority and respect. We know how we fight among each other and the power plays. Well let’s paint a scenario and imagine that this is how it started in heaven with God and Lucifer. God was King, Lord. Lucifer was the brother waiting in line for the kingship. God would never die so Lucifer would never be king. Lucifer gets jealous of all the attention God is getting from all the angels. God places Lucifer at the head of the praise authority. He has all power to lead and direct all glory and praise to God. He must teach respect and discipline to the angels in all the proper means necessary for heaven to continue to be glorious. But something happen! Lucifer decided why should I give God all this glory, honor and respect when I can have it myself? He began more and more to reject God and meditate on himself. In the wisdom of his own little mind he decided to overthrow the throne of God.
Lucifer birth forth in heaven a spirit of contention among the angels, created jealousy in his heart and created a bomb of envy. He birth forth disrespect, dishonor, and glorification to himself. Satan set out to win the throne of God in His own Kingdom. How could he do that? He also birthed forth strife and every other evil work. God knew; it had been noised about in heaven and God’s Spirit is open wide to noise. It had been noised about that Jesus would be put to death.
The Message of the Cross, obey them that have the rule over you. Submit to the authority given you in every area of life; home, Church, work or play. The message of the Cross is when it comes to God don’t look to the North, South, East, or West but look up. Look at how Jesus was hung up for our hang-ups. He looked up to the Father for his help. He looked to the Father to be glorified and to be glorified. He kept the continued path of his life; to bring glory to the Father. The Message of the Cross is complete and total devotion to the Father; to God the Creator of the earth. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and all that dwells therein.
The Message of the Cross is hope; hope for tomorrow, hope of eternal life, and hope for man once again to see God the Father. Jesus Christ is our hope of glory. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but Jesus Christ gives us hope of healing and deliverance, hope of salvation, sanctification, regeneration and justification. It’s not a hoax, trick, fabrication, deception or lie; Jesus is real, God is real, and hell is real. We were once vagabonds, wanderers and beggars raised out of our rightful place with God by his defeated enemy. The Message of the Cross is it’s a hold-up, a robbery, stick up, or burglary where Jesus took back the souls of man from the Devil. The Devil can’t win unless we give up the goods. We might lose the goods but we didn’t give them up. This is the Message of the Cross; the perforation or puncture Satan caused in the hearts of man toward God their Creator has been repaired and there is no longer a breach.
The Message of the Cross is one of reconnection; being hooked up to the right outlet once again, united with righteousness, yoked up to joy and peace, fastened to praise stored up and running over in our hearts for the Master, and united for eternity. We have to be like a diehard battery. We have to resist temptation to sin or disobey God. We must build us a resistance to the powers that be of the enemy through and by the help of the Holy Ghost. The objective of the Cross is to get rid of the dissenter that causes us to lose our charge. The Message of the Cross blocks and impedes the enemy. Jesus surpassed the pains of death, the weakness of the flesh, and the knowledge of knowing those that followed him was not there for him in the end. He did not allow these distractions to take His eyes off of God and His purpose for coming to the earth.
The Message of the Cross is this; that we be not hindered by what we may go through in this world for it is not our home. The Message of the Cross is to reveal who man’s real enemy is and his real purpose. Satan wants to stop the praise of God. He wants to impede our progress with God. He comes to obstruct (block, interfere, bar, hinder, or prevent) or retard our way. He has desired to interrupt the praise of God forever so he thwarts us with burdens to slow down the progress of God. He wants God to be disappointed with us. He spoils man’s joy and peace he once enjoyed in the earth. Satan can’t go to heaven for eternity so he plans to ban man from going by slowing down his purpose, smothering his hope, and spoiling his rightful desires.
The Message of the Cross is to warn us of Satan’s corruptness. The Message helps us to walk through the barriers, obstacles, or interference he may set in our way to throw us off the beacon path. The progression of man’s walk is dependent upon how man pivot and articulate while staying jointly linked up to God by way of Christ. The Message is this; we can hang once we have turned from sin and totally depend on God to go all the way with us. When we are connected to Christ we are joined together like a hinge that joins the door to the wall that the lock may be put in securely. Christ locked us in once Jesus went to the Cross and finished the work of redemption. We weren’t there but the account history gives is remarkable and factual as we find it recorded rather it is written of men. Man wrote by the inspiration of God, but it was all the same Message in different areas from the beginning.
The Message of the Cross is one of intimacy; it informs us of how our relationship can be once we acquaint ourselves with the one that loved us more than we love ourselves. If we have questions we are advised to accept rather than reject the truth. Look at the love shown; Jesus did not come down but stayed the course for you and I. He taught us here humble submission that we need to recall and be reminded of daily. The Message is not an implication, inkling, allusion, observation, tip, or suspicion but a real account of one that loves us yet today and reaches out to us not to only find us but win our souls for God. The Message brings reparation to man that all of our hopelessness is reversible. It brings a compelling, overpowering, overwhelming and powerful Message that is irresistible to the believer. The Message of the Cross once it falls on the ears of man like the Word says is permanent and irrevocable. The Word heard is on the inside but once it has been obeyed destroys sin and Satan’s stronghold is ruined.
The Message of the Cross detaches us from sin. It confines us to a secluded area of life that nothing can break in and steal if we remain divided from it. There are however times of isolation and solitude we may not enjoy, as Jesus did when He consumed the sin of the world. It seem like His Father had forsaken Him but God has nothing to do with sin. The Message of the Cross is we must have seclusion with God. We need that quiet time, dedicated meditation, and undisturbed prayer with God. We want to proceed where we can start on earth and reach heaven in that spiritual state we once were connected to. Jesus did not allow himself to be jammed up by man or the Devil when they tried to squeeze heaven out of Him through trickery and deceit. Instead He maintained His integrity. This dilemma, difficulty and problem He said would too pass!
The Message of the Cross teaches us how to have faith that works with the Word of God. It teaches that we can emerge victorious also. It teaches that if we keep our focus on the Cross and its purpose we can see God as He is. What we see may not be what we see at all. The people saw a man hanging on a cross but we see a Savior that came to his own and they received not the salvation and redemption He had with Him. We see that we will be sold out for pennies, offered up as liars and deceivers too! We see that all of the good we do is for nothing but for the sake of Christ and the righteousness of God. We cannot try to itemize what we do for we could not list it all; it is for a life time. We cannot number or detail all that God will and can do in our lifetime.
The Message of the Cross shows us how to have perfect humility that cannot be put in a jar and preserved. This humility must be shown to a dying world. This humility is not preserved in our own strength; when Jesus thought God was not there, He was. Humility is not humiliation as the world thinks. Where they thought they were embarrassing Jesus with shame, dishonor and disgrace God saw meekness, servility, subservience, and resignation being birth forth in man once again. The Devil’s disposition of gaiety, wittiness, and joyfulness was really being played down than being victorious as he thought. Satan’s intuition or notion was that he had defeated God. He had finally used man to destroy his own self and God would have to surrender the Kingdom of Heaven finally to him. Satan hastened to a speedy misgiving.
The Message of the Cross instead gave man a new hunger for the Creator. They were more desirous than ever to seek this God that Jesus taught them of. Man was now more determined than ever to seek after the God that could stump out hunger and starvation. They wanted that fulfillment that only God could give. They began to follow the trail that Jesus had given them as a roadmap on the highway of Holiness. They began to walk through the hurdles of life, breaking down the barriers of defeat and the blockades of hopelessness. Man began to investigate, seek out, probe for, and search for the more of God. The longing in their soul for the fulfillment of a loneliness unexplained had finally come to the forefront. There was now an urgency to find out more about their Creator and what He expected of us.
The Message of the Cross teaches us that once we really come to see and know Christ we can have a true relationship in our lives once and forever. There is no hypothetical answer, He’s real. God is not a figment of our imagination. He is not uncertain concerning His Creation in no way shape or form. God doesn’t assume as man set back and logically try to figure him out. We find that God showed man that He was not a fake, pretender, trickster or deceiver. He showed us by way of the cross that there is no pretense concerning Him, His Son, His Spirit or His love for man. Man’s hypocrisy however is shown in that they pretended to love Jesus but yet they didn’t. They were full of bigotry, sanctimony, and dishonesty. They sold Jesus out; Judas and the Church.
The Message of the Cross teaches us how we injure and wound one another. It teaches us how we can cause harm to one another and think nothing of it. We disfigure and mar ourselves to hide from God as Peter did denying that we are Christ’s soldiers when it is convenient. We don’t want to suffer with him or for him. When suffering times come we run! Just as Judas did we cause our own distress so we torture ourselves and make others unhappy at our own whim. We are just as guilty of cutting, bruising, slapping, whipping, lacerating, punching, scourging, and mistreating Jesus as much as those that did it at the Cross. His accusers caused injury, harm, and pain to Him but we do it still and more. We cause God more pain because Jesus came and died. He spoiled principalities but we spoil Him. We cause ruin, damage, and decay to the work Jesus did at the cross when we sensationalize through fascination and over exaggeration and dramatizing through fleshly means rather than spiritual anointing.
The Message of the Cross is to make us reflect on how much God loves us. He wants to be our thought process every day, every hour, every minute and every second. He wants our lifestyle to reflect him. He wants our lifestyle to direct not only our heart to Him but sinners also. The people around the Cross said “surely this is the Son of God”. In our considerations of things in life God should be our first concern. When God is real in our souls we don’t deliberately do wrong in no way shape or form. We strive to remain reformed, improving for the betterment of Christ. This mean we revise what need be that takes us away from God; sin. We redeem our faults and rectify them. We repent when and where necessary rather we are wrong or not. Jesus took on the sin of the world, he had committed no sin.
The Message of the Cross teaches restoration. It shows us that if we come to Christ we can be restored to God. He replaces the emptiness once placed between God and man through sin with a line of repair. We have been reinstated in the joy of the Lord. The homecoming of Jesus Christ again to the Father once again allows us to also come before the Father and receive our place in heaven. Jesus recovered that right for man. He took away the punishment man deserved for leaving the confines of God and gave us another chance to say yes. He is our recompense for sin. He regained the right for us to rebound and give life another shot from a righteousness perspective. He made all things new for us; you and me! We can now enter into his rest. The remainder of our life on earth can be spent in tranquility and serene peace because we know that God will supply all our need and will help us every day in spite of our inabilities.
The Message of the Cross teaches us how to rebuild our relationships. In every aspect of life man has relationships. We can tear down relationships without knowing it. Adam didn’t realize that he was tearing down the relationship God desired with all men. He didn’t know of his nakedness until after he disobeyed God. He blamed the woman God had given him to be his wife. The message we receive here is that we are responsible for our actions independently. We learn to take responsibility for our actions rather than blame another. God wants to increase us again in the faith. He wants to construct us over again with that same serenity and peace Adam had in the Garden. He wants to have us come before Him in the same silence Adam did and meditate on him daily. He wants us to meet Him where He is; in heaven. God wants heaven to come down on earth. He wants his Will done in earth as it was in heaven.
The Message of the Cross teaches us how to reclaim the lost for Christ as Christ did for the Father. We must widen our horizon with understanding of God and who He is. God wants us to expand, increase and grow. We must learn how to be tolerant of people. All souls are mine said the Lord. We must be progressively seeking the lost that they too may be found of God. We can’t be prejudiced in seeking souls nor liberal about sin. Jesus seemed to be inoperable on the cross but yet He was operable; operating on the lost, busted, and faulty. He was operating in the Spirit what we should be doing in the natural; finding those that have been smashed, shattered, damaged and cracked in this world and offer them that saving hope of Jesus Christ. This is the fulfillment of Jesus mission in the earth; complete and accomplished. We too must achieve this same work and mission of winning souls effectively.
The Message of the Cross teaches us how to regenerate, amend, and correct our doings. We can be made over. After we have come to Christ we must seek him further that He may give us that power promised to us where we can continue to learn, put on and pull off sin, and grow in Christ with less fumbling. It’s time we stop mishandling the Word of God and mismanaging God’s business in the earth. We must do as Jesus did, trust God all the way. We must learn to stop messing up our lives and others too with our doings. We the people of God are being taught by way of the cross that we must be full of God. It’s time out for us just allowing the Spirit to come upon us. The Holy Spirit wants to come in and dwell; live in us but He want come if we are full of other stuff; sin. Jesus is saying here, when we get ourselves regenerated, saturated in the Holy Spirit, and crammed with the Word get someone loaded sufficiently with all of God.
The Message of the Cross teaches us how to refrain from things detrimental to our souls. We learn how to avoid catastrophes in life, cease from sin, forbearance of one another, and abstain from desiring the things in the earth more than God. The work Jesus did at the Cross was to refresh the relationship man once had with the Creator. It renews and replenishes the relationship all the way to glory. Jesus at the Cross restored us to right relationship that we may continue to know the more of our Creator and build within ourselves the Church that once only belonged to God. Jesus took the Church made of hands; that is flesh to the grave and raised up the Church of God; that is Spirit to make man a living soul again.
The Message of the Cross teaches us how to live again a godly and righteous life in the time we have on earth in the flesh and spirit. It teaches God’s precise order for man; how that we should live systematic, organized, and consistent with His Word. God’s Word is past habitually good, usually meaningful or common, ordinary or normal. We must get past the norm and learn to govern and control our walk with the Word of God every day. We cannot live by regulated governing; but by every Word that proceeds from God. If we adjust our lives only to the law of men we will fail to even keep their laws. But when we put God first we can adapt, rectify and correct our doings and strengthen us that we keep man’s law also.
The Message of the Cross teaches soundness. Sin have to be repudiated, refused, renounced, denied, discarded or expelled from our lives daily. The Word must be reinforced daily that we may rejoice and bring God glory. We celebrate life and enjoy coming into the presence of God without regressing (backsliding, relapsing, reverting, retreating, or sinking) because we are growing in Christ. We are more repentant, remorseful, and regretful of committing sin. Christ
wants us to relate to the work at the Cross He did that we connect in the Spirit. How can we say we are in association with Him but not suffer anything? It’s impossible when those that are godly will suffer persecution. When we are linked up with God we have a strong opponent of the faith that seeks to not only destroy us but the work of God in the earth.
The Message of the Cross teaches that there is no frailty in Jesus Christ. Just like there are those that carry the message of God, he have witnesses that communicate his devilish demonic messages also. Satan transmits his messages mimicking God a little to make his message seemingly true. He piggybacks off of God’s Word because we know that God’s Word is true. He is relentless, unmerciful, vindictive, hard, and ruthless. He wants what God gave man of himself; the souls of men. The basis of our foundation must be for no other reason than that of Jesus Christ. All of His reasoning builds us and makes us strong. He is the originator and strength of man; Jesus Christ the Word. He is the first and final authority of man in the earth. He is our footing, pier, groundwork, substructure and underpinning. Besides him there is no other that can be relied upon. He is the framework of the earth, the scaffolding and support. How do we think we can go around Him? He is the border, the margin, fringe, hem, trim and outline; how do we think we can go through except He takes us? He is not fragile, brittle, delicate, or weak; man is.
We are dependent on Him; and not He on us. We need His saving strength; not He ours. We are weak but He is strong.
Jesus is the messenger with the message and calls us to also be a messenger with the message of Christ. The message doesn’t stop at the Cross but continues today. We though must keep the vision of the Cross front and center in our minds that we may stay the course. The Word was, the Word came, and the Word was crucified and resurrected again and still today is being resurrected in the hearts of men.
We are dependent on Him; and not He on us. We need His saving strength; not He ours. We are weak but He is strong. Jesus is the messenger with the message and calls us to also be a messenger with the message of Christ. The message doesn’t stop at the Cross but continues today. We though must keep the vision of the Cross front and center in our minds that we may stay the course. The Word was, the Word came, and the Word was crucified and resurrected again and still today is being resurrected in the hearts of men.
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