Nuggets from An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith by Dave Hunt - Crucified with Christ

Nuggets from An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith by Dave Hunt – Crucified with Christ

In Galatians:6:14But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
See All... Paul writes, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.” As those who have been crucified with Christ, we have been completely cut off from this world. One of the problems with today’s Christianity is its attempt to make itself appealing to the spirit of this world and thus to become popular with the world. Christ would no more be popular today than He was in His day; and He said that those who hated Him would hate His disciples. So John wrote, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John:2:15Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
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Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Paul explained further: “For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you” (2 Corinthians:13:4For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.
See All...). How are we weak in Him? Not in our relationship to sin or Satan or to the temptations of this world, over which we have the victory through Christ. We are weak in the same way that He was weak, that is, in that He did not fight to defend Himself or His kingdom against the political or military might of this world. His victory (and ours in Him) over Satan also came in submitting to death: “That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Hebrews:2:14-15 [14] Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; [15] And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
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It is not through gritting our teeth and determining by our will-power that we overcome temptation, but in accepting the fact that we are dead in Christ. The dead no longer lust, lose their tempers, or act selfishly. Our victory is in being “dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans:6:11Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
See All...). We have given up life as we would live it in order to experience His life being lived in and through us. The life He gives is resurrection life, and only those who are dead can receive that. We cannot know the fullness of the power of the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Christ, until we have willingly accepted His death as our death.

These few thoughts scarcely scratch the surface of the meaning of the cross (which includes, of course, the resurrection). In meditating upon this greatest event of all time and eternity, we begin to see both the horror of our own sin and the amazing love or our Lord – the two chief motivations for holiness. May we abide in His love, that the cross so fully proved, and become the messengers and channels of that love to the world for which He died.