By TONY HOSS
Perhaps some of the best advice one could receive as we strive to increase our faith in God, is to mentally remain at the foot of the cross and allow the lessons we learn there to manifest themselves in our physical lives. It is the challenge of every child of God to see, think and feel as our creator does. We each should measure our days while trying to put into practice the attributes of a child of God. To help us accomplish this goal we should remain at the foot of the cross.
In our lives we perceive things from a human standpoint. This makes it difficult to see things as God does. There are times when we experience good days in life and our hearts are full of joy. Then there are those times when it seems we can not really see what it is that God wants us to know. There are times when we can neither understand fully the grace nor the mercy of God for such sinful creatures as us. There are times in our lives when it seems we cannot understand the terrible nature of the sin in the world and God’s hatred for that sin. There are those times in our lives that we cannot understand God’s love for sinners and the depravity to which man stoops. There are those day in our lives when we feel we have no friend in the world.
With all the turmoil that we face throughout our lives how do we make sense of everything? Perhaps the best way to make sense of our lives and to increase our faith in God is to try and see them as He does. I think there is no better place to accomplish this task than at the foot of the cross. It is there that the realities God wants us to see can be found.
When Christians sit at the foot of the cross, we see why we should feel good. We should feel good because the events surrounding the cross make it possible to find salvation. The events of the cross remind us that Deity suffered more than any man ever suffered in this world. Seeing the sufferings of Christ help us to see that our problems are often no problem at all. It is at the foot of the cross that we see that sin is the reason for the sufferings of Christ and the fall of mankind. At the foot of the cross we can see Satan, the enemy of God and man. At the foot of the cross we can see the plan of redemption unfolding. There is so much to see and learn at the foot of the cross, if we would only take a few minutes each day and reflect on the events the occurred there on that terrible day. Those events should make it clear that we should never be so blinded by accomplishments or wounded by losses that we would ever walk away from God.
In our world today many paint pictures of the cross and wear jewelry designed as a cross. Often people proclaim how beautiful those emblems are. While I have no problem with those emblems, I believe that they often take away from the events that occurred on that terrible day. It was a day when the Son of God died by the cruel hands of mankind.
My prayer is that all Christians would take a daily walk back to the cross of Jesus. For in it we see the reality of all that is evil manifested in the pain, suffering and death of Jesus. Though the cross once stood as an instrument of death perhaps the most beautiful thought is that in that cross we can see the victory of the resurrection. At the foot of the cross, that instrument of death, we can see life eternal spring forward because our sins are nailed to it.
Allow the cross of Jesus to draw you closer to God and develop in you a fuller more spiritual life; a life filled with proper respect and faith.
(Tony Hoss is minister at the Centerview Church of Christ, Elizabethton. He can be contacted at 737-2287 or by email at: tmagho1@comcast.net)