Sit and Stare

A couple of Thursday mornings a month I am privileged to meet with a group of guys at a local Starbucks. We are currently reading through C.J. Maheney’s book Living the Cross Centered Life. This morning we enjoyed rich fellowship and encouragement centered on the need to discipline ourselves to set the cross ever before us that we might cultivate genuine gospel humility resounding in praise to the Savior.

In considering this challenge it is helpful to admit weaknesses and challenges. For instance, we should admit that we are not as focused on Christ as we ought to be. We are also far to enamored with the accommodations of this world, we too often do not find ourselves eagerly longing for heaven like we ought (Phil 3.21, Col. 3.1-4). We also are plagued with a propensity towards the worship of self. Too often our lives are self-centered rather than cross-centered.

So what do we do? How do we live the cross-centered life?

A good place to start is repentance. We can be praying that God would be merciful in giving more grace, that we would truly value the cross and the Savior who died upon it. Additionally, it is always helpful to evangelize yourself daily, to tour the hill of agony with watery eyes that we might see our sin as eternally despicable and our Savior as eternally beautiful. In this vein it is critical to heed the Apostle’s exhortation to Timothy:

2 Timothy 2:8 Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel

The verb here (translated remember) is in the present tense calling Timothy to maintain this practice of calling to mind the Savior. The gospel is to never escape his mind, for he is to be ever fixed upon it. So too, us as grandchildren in the faith, we are to keep remembering Jesus Christ. We do not want to be guilty of forgetting, undervaluing, or under appreciating the Savior. It was the unbelieving who, according to Isaiah, “we did not esteem him” (Is. 53.3). This is the exact opposite of what God is calling us to do.

Too often Christians think of the cross as the turnstile into the Christian life; as if we run through it with a passing glance and then it is on to the amusement park of Christianity, full of free rides, games and entertainment. This is simply not true! The cross is not simply for unbelievers, but it is for believers as well! We must love and live the gospel.

The cross is an enduring monument of our guilt and God’s unconditional grace towards believers. As Christians we should be tied with a providential leash to its base and should never wander from its shadow. So much of the trouble and pain we incur as believers flows from such wandering.

If we would set the cross ever before ourselves we would be content to sit and to stare at it, knowing that it was upon that tree that we were simultaneously indicted and pardoned, where the source of life died that the source of death might live, where pride was crucified that biblical boasting might ensue; it is here fellow Christians that we are to find ourselves dwelling perpetually, here alone. Sit and stare that you might see and savor Jesus.

Possibly Related posts:

1. Challenged to Boast like a Christian
2. More of Him and Less of Me
3. More of Jesus & Less of us
4. Learning to be impressed with the gospel
5. I Would Like About $3 Worth of Gospel Please

3 Responses to “Sit and Stare”

1. Rick Weiss says:

   March 15, 2007 at 10:04 am

   Your messages are awsome
   Thanks
2. Laurel Wreath says:

   March 15, 2007 at 1:04 pm

   I love that book by CJ Maheney, in fact I got it out from my bookcase because I read it first last year and knew this is the perfect book to read before Easter each year. Very powerful.
3. Gary Peterson says:

   March 16, 2007 at 6:46 pm

   Wow, 53 comments thus far on the Saddleback post and only 2 for Sit and Stare? I had to comment just to bump the numbers by one!

   This was a beautiful, thoughtful post, and you really said it all. Maybe that’s why so few have commented?

   Anyway, just so you know it’s been read and appreciated . . .