June 17
You Don’t Have Christianity Without the Cross
One of the great dangers of progressive Christianity is that they want to remove the cross from Christianity. They believe that it didn’t happen, that it is just a metaphor, that a loving God wouldn’t sacrifice His Son, and that the cross is tantamount to child abuse.
This is demonic teaching because Christ’s work at the cross separates Christianity from all other religions. If there is no cross, if there is no atonement for sin, and no price was paid for our freedom, what separates Christianity from any other religion? The cross is a huge deal!
It is only because Christ willingly took the punishment for our sin and paid the price that we should have paid that we can be reconciled to God.
It is through the cross that we can experience a personal relationship with God.
Through the cross, we experience forgiveness, healing, deliverance, and eternal life.
The fact is that you can’t have Christianity without the cross. No amount of social justice, personal reformation, or good works can ever transform a life and save a soul like Jesus’ work on the cross.
We cannot deny it, replace it, or allow any theology that debates it.
Instead, we need to celebrate it and thank God for all He gave us daily.
We must remember that the price Jesus paid was real…so was all the pain He endured. Yet, He did it willingly because of God’s incredible love for us.
He did it so that we could experience forgiveness, have a restored relationship with God, and experience eternal life and abundant life while on earth.
None of this would be possible without the cross.
Every Christian’s testimony and every Gospel message finds its foundation at the cross.
While some may choose to deny it, fight it, and pervert the greatest truth ever told, as Christians, we are called to remember that our faith, our freedom from sin, and our hope for eternity are all about the cross. We cannot entertain any teaching, teacher, or theology that seeks to remove the cross from Christianity.
Without the cross, there is no salvation. Without salvation, where would we be?
Memory Verse: For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18, ESV)
New International Version (NIV)
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