Come Back To Your First Love: The Cross of Christ

We are all part of the human race. Every man, woman, and child on the Earth belongs to it. For those who believe—those who seek to be Christlike—our belief is in God. And the one thing that connects us to Him, the one thing that made reconciliation, restoration, and reunion with God possible, is the Cross of Christ.

We believe that Jesus died on the Cross for our sins. Through that act, we became the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus—through Jesus and what He accomplished on the Cross of Calvary. In believing and accepting what was done for us there, something profound took place: we were clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Himself. Now, when God looks at us, He does not see our sin; He sees the righteousness of the perfect Lamb who was slain, blotting out every transgression.

I know I may sound like a broken record, but this is where it all happened for us. This is it. The Cross of Christ is where our focus must remain. It is where our faith must be anchored.

At the Cross, sin was fully atoned for—all who would believe. Jesus, who knew no sin, became the Lamb of God, willingly slain, paying the wages of sin, which is death. Under the sacrificial system, the offering always had to be without spot, wrinkle, or blemish—innocent and sinless. That system was merely a type and shadow of what would one day be fulfilled at the Cross. Jesus was that Lamb.

He took upon Himself the sins of the “whosoever” spoken of in John 3:16. Every human being has the opportunity to become a whosoever. Every person has a choice, and that choice determines whether one becomes a whosoever who believes.

We are instructed to hold fast to the confession of our faith—our hope—without wavering. Faith in what? It always returns to John 3:16: that God loved us so much He gave His only Son, Jesus, to die on the Cross for our sins.

When we believe this—when we place our faith in it—we become whosoevers who will not perish in our sins but will have everlasting life. It is the Cross. Our faith must remain in the Cross, where Jesus took our sins upon Himself and, in exchange, imputed to us His righteousness. It may not seem like a fair trade for Him, but it reveals just how deeply He loves us.

For those of us who believe—whosoevers—we must come to understand that everything we need to live victoriously in every area of life is found in the Cross of Christ. Mankind’s answer is found in the finished work of the Cross.

2 Corinthians 10:3–5 reminds us that though we walk in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh. Our battle is not physical; it is spiritual. The weapons God has given us are divinely powerful for the destruction of strongholds—casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into obedience to Christ.

The Amplified translation helps bring this into sharper focus. Though we are human, we are not fighting a human battle. Those “imaginations” are the sophisticated arguments and reasonings that elevate themselves against the knowledge of God. And what is that knowledge? It is Jesus and Him crucified.

When mankind elevates its own reasoning, intelligence, philosophies, and ideas above God’s solution—Jesus and the Cross—we miss the answer to humanity’s greatest problem: sin. There is something in us that wants to contribute to our own salvation, to claim a part in our righteousness. But God did not need, and does not need, our help. Salvation belongs to Him alone.

We often want a share in the glory, believing we know better than our Creator. Yet He knows us completely—even the number of hairs on our heads. Still, humanity continues to search for truth through reasoning and philosophy, even though God has already given us the Truth that truly sets us free. He gave us His only Son.

And for those who dare to believe, the Son sets them free indeed.

Since the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden, humanity has been reasoning and searching. The Fall shifted us from moral innocence to moral self-awareness and self-judgment. In our desire to be like God, we moved from divine direction to self-governance.

Once, we walked with God daily, free from guilt and shame, safe under His care. But when we began to rely on ourselves instead of Him, we entered a cycle of failure, condemnation, and shame—things we never knew before the Fall. We felt no guilt or shame for we loved God and basked in all that He had given us. But we allowed the enemy to deceive us, though we had a choice to do that which was instructed by God and not eat of the tree, but we “reasoned” within ourselves… “We can be like God”.

Sidebar:

Even if The Fall had not happened, I believe we would still have all the technology, medical advances, and creativity we have today—but it would be so much better and even far more advanced. Proverbs 8:12 tells us that Wisdom (the Wisdom of God) dwells with us and finds out knowledge of witty inventions.

All that we have now—but with good judgment, moral courage, and astute common sense.

Even then, God’s love for humanity did not waver. God Himself came down in the form of man—Jesus Christ— to deal with the consequence of the Fall: sin. Sin is mankind’s problem, and from it flow all the grief, misery, affliction, and judgment in life.

Though we try countless ways to better ourselves, outside the Cross of Christ it cannot be done. Some methods may appear to work for a time, but they ultimately fail.

One thing alone has stood the test of time: Jesus and His great accomplishment on the Cross. The finished work of the Cross still saves. It still sets free.

Jesus paid the sin debt in full for all who would believe. Yet somewhere along the way, many received Christ but left the Cross behind— returning to searching, striving, and reasoning, even though the complete answer had already been given: Jesus and Him crucified.

Faith placed anywhere other than the Cross of Christ is not faith God accepts. There is only one way. That way is Jesus—and the Cross.

Come back to your first love.
A love like no other.
The Cross of Christ.