Only Jesus - Part 4

 

Continued from previous post…

 

            A few weeks ago I was driving on I-95 through Fredericksburg and I tuned my radio to WXYZ.7 FM. I heard this “Christian” station billing itself as a “your positive radio station where you can hear positive music and your favorite personalities.” I think the word “positive” was used about once every 15 seconds. After listening to this for a minute or two I changed the station.

            Let’s go back to the Matthew 16 for a moment…Jesus talking about the Cross and Peter trying to protect Jesus. Peter did not like the idea of Jesus being rejected, tortured and crucified. In fact, Peter thought Jesus needed protection from Himself – Peter wanted to remove the Cross from Jesus.

            In Matthew 16 we see that as soon as Jesus corrected Peter that Jesus taught about the Cross, about us taking up our cross and denying ourselves and not seeking to save our own lives but rather that we are called to lose our lives for Jesus and the Gospel.

            If Jesus said to Peter, “Get behind me Satan,” what would He say today to those in His Kingdom who strive to make the Gospel some sort of touchy feely warm and fuzzy way of life that demands nothing and provides cotton candy in return? We think we have a duty to protect Jesus when of course we really want to protect ourselves. The writer of Hebrews exhorts us to go outside the camp bearing His reproach. Paul writes about the offense of the Cross and yet so often we want to lessen its offense – we say it is out of consideration for others, but it is really in consideration of ourselves…and it is certainly not in consideration of Jesus – for He is the Christ of the Cross – and it is a Cross of sacrifice and self-denial and atonement – it is not a Cross wrapped in velvet sold by some roadside vendor along with big plush teddy bears and day-glow images of Elvis.

            So we should beware of seeking to remove the Cross from the Gospel, from our lives and from the Person of Jesus Christ. And the best antidote to that tendency is expressed by Paul in Philippians chapter 3 when he cries, “I want to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.”

            In Galatians Paul says, “God forbid that I should glory in anything but the Cross of Christ.”

            I’m afraid that radio station WXYZ.7 in its attempt to generate advertising revenue and broaden its listening audience has removed itself from the only frequency that really matters, the frequency of the Cross.

            But there is yet another statement of Peter’s that may be even more insidious than this business of removing the Cross from Christ and Christ from the Cross.

 

To be continued…