Nuggets from An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith by Dave Hunt - The Cross That Saves Us

Nuggets from An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith by Dave Hunt – The Cross That Saves Us

In our great concern over the growing apostasy and in our zeal to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints, we must constantly take heed of our personal relationship with and testimony for our Lord. And to do this, we must always keep foremost in our hearts and minds the cross – not its shape, but what transpired upon it.

Scripture makes it very clear that the cross of Christ is the heart of the message we preach, the determinant of our relationship to this evil world, and the secret of victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil in our daily lives. Christ reminded His listeners repeatedly that it was not possible to be His disciple and thus a true Christian without denying self and taking up the cross to follow Him. The Bible make it clear what this means, although there is also more depth of truth in the cross than we will be able to fathom in this life.

Paul wrote, “I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians:2:2For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
See All...). This characterized his consistent conduct and the message he preached. For him there was one important rule: “Not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ be made of none effect” (1:17). We dare not compromise, dilute, or try to improve with man’s wisdom the straightforward simplicity of the cross. To do so destroys its truth and power to save others and to deliver us from succumbing to daily trials and temptations.

We have a tendency to forget that “the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness” (1:18). One of the greatest problems today is the often well-intentioned attempt to reinterpret the gospel to make it reasonable and acceptable to the natural or carnal man. Instead, the unchangeable message must change the thinking and lives of those who receive it or it cannot change their eternal destiny. Let that never be forgotten. That transforming power is missing both from the gospel preached to the lost and from the Christian’s life, when the sharp sword of the Word with its radical message of the cross has been sheathed in the popular psychologies and self-oriented thinking in our day.