OUR FLAG, OUR FAITH, OUR FAMILY

Unique to Christianity is the priority of Love. Loving God with all our Heart and our neighbors as ourselves. In response to this priority of Loving God and Loving people the enemy offers loving self. When loving self becomes a priority it does so at the expense of humanity and the gospel.

The Priority of Love…

“He was despised and rejected by men,
    a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
    he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.”

The gospel is “We over Me” because of Love. Satan seeks to divide us, to unite us only as victims. To focus our attention, energy, resources on being offended. The devil would raise the offense higher than the Cross and we cannot let this happen in our generation. 

““The devil would raise the offense higher than the Cross and we cannot let this happen in our generation.”
”

I am deeply troubled and saddened at the division in our nation. If I thought a politician could unite our nation I would have dedicated my life toward that mission. Instead I have given my life to serving the King of Kings. He alone, is the bridge that spans the divide. That bridge is the cross of sacrifice where he laid down His life for ALL. He is not an answer, He is the Answer.

There is no cause, no grievance, no suffering on earth that can be elevated to the height of the Cross of Christ. The greatest injustices on earth were bourn on the Cross. That Cross is what we are commanded as Christians to Carry before the World.

Mark 8:34

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

““To our Savior whose hands are scarred from the nails, whose head bore the thorny crown, whose side was pierced we say: “I know how you feel”.
”

What have we done to the message of the Cross? We have made it about us and not about Him. To our Savior whose hands are scarred from the nails, whose head bore the thorny crown, whose side was pierced we say: “I know how you feel”.  No, you don’t!

You have no idea. Our sins crushed the life out of our Savior.

5 “But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;”

Each generation of Christianity has bourn the weight of the message by picking up His Cross not by picking up their offense.

17 For Christ didn’t send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel; and even my preaching sounds poor, for I do not fill my sermons with profound words and high-sounding ideas, for fear of diluting the mighty power there is in the simple message of the cross of Christ. (I Cor. 1:17 LB)

 

The Christian Generation before us is at the gates of eternity, who will take up the cross they bore and carry it forward? If you want to pick it up, you must first lay down self. Lay down your right to be offended, your right to have a hearing in a deaf world. Lay down rights in favor of responsibility. Our responsibility to the Cross of Christ, to the generation before us, to the sovereignty of God: He alone rights wrongs, forgives sin, judges injustice, rescues the weak and conquers evil. 

He has not called us to be God, He has called us to reveal God to our lost generation by "Loving" like He Loves. Cancel your victim cause and replace it with the cause of Christ. You don't have to look hard to find a reason to be offended. We do need to work hard to see ourselves as we really are inside. To uncover our motives, our lusts, our bag of rights that fly in the face of spiritual authority over us. 

"God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Ro. 5:8)

 

 

There is a huge difference between doing right things and doing things right. When we do things right we are under the authority of the King of Kings. We are serving His mission, His purpose, His priority of Love. Often when we are activist's for a cause, we are serving our interest, someone else's offense or simply what seems right in our own eyes. Abraham took his son to an altar of sacrifice in obedience to God. It was to be a picture of what God would do for all of humanity. Though God spared Abraham's son, He did not spare His own Son. 

We are son's and daughters of God. God wants a big family. Every member of His family is called to love. You don't even need to work to produce this love, it is freely given to you, through relationship with God in Christ. Every ounce of Love you need is freely provide. An abundance of Love so that you can even love those who are difficult to love. Love looks beyond race, status, social injustice and ideology. Love binds us together, unites us in mission. Love heals the broken, establishes our trust in the only one worthy of trust. Love conquers all.