The good the bad and the utterly glorious

It struck me tonight at Church Cell, that one of the lies the enemy tells us to get at us is pretty pathetic really. He tells us we're not good enough. He makes us look at our sins, our way of life, our thought pattern and tells us, nudges us, that we are not good enough to be a Christian.
Well here's a thing. He's absolutly right. The cross tells us that eh? The cross is surely all the we need to see that we will never be good enough for a restored relationship with the Father, but that in the same breath that its not about being good enough. If any of us could be good enough, if any of us could be justified by the law, if we could redeem ourselves in any way, God would not have sent His son to die on the cross. Jesus would not have claimed to be the only way to heaven. Because the cross would be unneccesary and Jesus' claims of exclusivity would be untrue.

But our pride condemns us. Our pride, ably pushed on by the Devils tells us we won't and can;t be good enough, and that we should just give up. But the cross tells us something different. The cross tells us that we won't and can't be 'good enough', so come to Jesus and receive new life. Which do you prefer.

It confounds me when some Christians complain about hearing 'another sermon on the cross'...why would you ever want to hear or speak on anything else? The cross is where it all begins and ends. Sure, there are other things that are good to be taught on, to feed on and glorify God for, but none of those things work unless viewed through a cross shaped prism. I think Michael Ramsden summed it up for me perfectly at the pre mission 2005 meeting when he said something along the lines of 'on monday i'll be talking on love, and we'll go to the cross from there, on tuesday i'll be talking about hope, and we'll go to the cross from there, on wednesday the future, and we'll go to the cross from there etc'. Top!

So keep your eyes looking at the cross, and look at everything else through those cross shaped glasses. It really is all we've got, as soon as we lose our cross focus, we're in a lot of trouble...