Dying to Live

The following is something I wrote for Easter a couple of years ago. I decided to post it again here for those who might not have read it before.

One of my favorite quotes about the cross comes from A.W. Tozer. He wrote:

The spiritual giants of old would not take their religion the easy way nor offer unto God that which cost them nothing. They sought not comfort but holiness, and the pages of history are still wet with their blood and their tears.

Though the cross of Christ has been beautified by the poet and the artist, the avid seeker after God is likely to find it the same savage implement of destruction it was in the days of old. The way of the cross is still the pain-wracked path to spiritual power and fruitfulness.

So do not seek to hide from it. Do not accept an easy way. Do not allow yourself to be patted to sleep in a comfortable church, void of power and barren of fruit. Do not paint the cross nor deck it with flowers. Take it for what it is, as it is, and you will find it the rugged way to death and life. Let it slay you utterly. Seek God. Seek to be holy and fear none of those things which you will suffer.

Certainly we wish to celebrate the empty tomb on this Resurrection Sunday, but I wonder if perhaps the greatest folly of modern-day Christianity is that, too often, we look to the empty tomb without first pausing to contemplate the rugged ugliness of the cross. It seems there is a lot of belief in a cheap grace these days. It’s true that grace is free to all who seek it, but it cost our Savior more than our finite minds could even begin to comprehend.

The danger of looking to grace without understanding what it cost is that we too easily take it for granted. The beauty of grace is that it is free, but the power of grace rests upon the fact that its cost can not be measured by any human calculation. However, to fail to reflect on what it cost our Savior, is to fail to understand the nature of our fallen condition and utter sinfulness prior to grace being poured into our lives. When we fail to understand the nature of our prior condition or truly understand that our only hope lies in a grace that we can never earn, we risk living a shallow Christian life at best. We will never know the full importance of forsaking sin until we first understand the pain our sin brings to heart of God.

We must not fail to wholly embrace our personal cross and allow it to slay us completely. We must allow it to drive out anything and everything that would keep us from being entirely surrendered to God and to His leadership in our lives. The cross we must endure will be harsh and ugly and painful; dying is never easy or enjoyable, but if we embrace the cross and remain there until we have fully died, we will finally live. The cross does not last forever. The dawn of resurrection will come to all who choose to embrace it.

Those who have already allowed the cross to slay them can rejoice on this Resurrection Sunday in a way that others can only envision from a distance. Those who have not yet fully embraced the cross need not despair, for you may choose to embrace it even now and let death on the cross lead you to a glorious resurrection of new life; a life entirely surrendered to God. Jesus paid the price and grace is free, but each of us must personally choose to die to sin so that we may live forever with Him. If you do not know Him as your personal Savior, what better day than this to get acquainted with Him? Christ the Lord is risen! And because He lives, we may live also.