Lead Me to Calvary
“You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
– C.S. Lewis.
I have the tea part down, but I am working on the reading – reading deeper and longer books. The book I have recently been reading is Living the Cross Centered Life, by C.J. Mahaney. The book poses the question, “Do we adequately understand the deepest reasons behind the cross?”
What comes to your mind when you think of the cross? Wood, jewelry, a religious symbol? My Pastor, Dave Teruel, preached on this subject a few Sundays ago. He said, “The gospel will cause me to embrace or reject the stigma that comes with the cross of Christ.” The cross says to me that I could not save myself or bear the weight of my sin. Are you favorable toward the stigma of the cross, the stigma that comes in our society? The love of the world can compete with the cross. Do we love this cross on which Christ died, on which He was nailed, for which He took the stigma?
Sometimes I fear we are like Peter and are embarrassed at the cross and our association with it. We all have been challenged in our lives in this area. If we do not come to understand the meaning behind Gethsemane and Calvary, it will only be superficial, vague, and fleeting to us. “The Gospel message is not just visual in a symbol, but it is truth” (C.J. Mahaney). Romans 10:17 says, “So then, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.”
We will bear fruit if we stand firm in the cross of Christ. Our lives should be centered on the cross – on Christ, not the world’s ideas, not the stigma it places on it.
Give Me Jesus
Take the world, but give me Jesus,
All its joys are but a name;
But His love abideth ever,
Through eternal years the same.
Oh, the height and depth of mercy!
Oh the length and breadth of love!
Oh, the fullness of redemption,
Pledge of endless life above!
Take the world, but give me Jesus,
In His cross my trust shall be;
‘Till with clearer, brighter vision,
Face to face my Lord I see.
– Frances J. Crosby
Pam Cavanaugh