Fellow-Redeemed,
The best place to view beautiful scenery is a roadside vista. You have seen those turn outs by the side of the road where you park, get out of the car, and take in an eye full. Generally, there is a sign that points to the vista. I have had some great views of both the Grand Canyon and Mt. Ranier from such viewpoints.
The cross of Jesus Christ is just such a vista only better. Like the signs that direct us to viewpoints along the roadGod’s Love and God’s Grace Point us to the Cross. To the cross we go for an appreciative view toward eternity; and, for a different view toward this life.
The Apostle Paul takes as a given that God’s love for us is “great” and that he is “rich in mercy.” Love and mercy are great and rich because they get their value from a great and rich sacrifice; the life and death on the cross of God’s one and only Son.
The riches of God’s grace are “incomparable.” What could compare to that sin offering to redeem us?God’s love and grace point us to the cross. We are living in the “coming ages” Paul wrote about. God continues to point lost sinners to “the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”
If you want an appreciative view toward heaven, you must stand at Jesus’ cross. God’s love and grace are not just good feelings God has toward his enemies for no reason. Just telling someone God’s loves you, while true, is not preaching the gospel. Why did God love me? How has God loved me?
Standing at the foot of the cross and seeing Jesus lifted up from the earth as Moses lifted up the snake on the pole in the desert gives us our answers to the why and the how of God’s love and grace. From here we have an appreciative view toward eternity. Paul put it this way, “But because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved.”
From the cross we appreciate the view of our new eternity in Christ. God has given us new life in Christ “it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God…”We who were dead in our transgressions are alive in Christ’s resurrection from his death on the cross. From this lofty vista “in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,” God continues to show us his “incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
Our appreciative view of eternity is ours already through the eyes of faith. We already have eternal life in Christ. God has given us his Holy Spirit as the deposit of heaven. From Jesus’ cross our eyes look out over the beautiful landscape of our eternity in God’s family begun when the Holy Spirit brought us to faith through the means of grace.
Coming to Jesus’ cross as God’s love and grace point us there, we have a view not only of heaven in our hearts and the day when our hearts are in heaven. God’s love and God’s grace point us to the cross for a different view toward this life.
Standing at Jesus cross gives us a completely different view of the meaning and purpose of our lives here on earth. We see life on this earth as already our living in “the heavenly realms” for we are citizens of the kingdom of God, the church. No longer in the spiritual death of unbelief we view this life not as our own time to do with as we wish.
God’s love and God’s grace point us the cross from which we see this is not the time to gratify the cravings of the sinful nature. It is not the time to follow the ways of the world. We understand that we are no longer the objects of God’s wrath who must save ourselves. We see that in this life “no one can boast” since even being Christians is not something we chose or did.
I also see God has given me things to do. Paul wrote, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” From the vista of Jesus’ cross which is the love and grace of God in Christ we see good works are not my works I do to earn God’s favor. We see good works as works God has given us to do in our faith because we belong to him.
There is the danger in condemning good works as the reasons for our being saved rather than by grace through faith.We might give the impression that good works are not necessary in our lives as Christians. From the cross we see nothing could be further from the truth. Good works are a part of our sanctification. Our works which God has prepared for us to do, works of love toward him and toward our neighbors, are our loving response to God and to his grace. Only from the cross can we have this different view of our lives as Christians. We not only say thank you to God every day. We live our thanks by godly faithfulness in the vocations and opportunities God gives us for service in our varied stations in life.
God’s love and God’s grace point us to the cross. They point nowhere else. Jesus’ cross like a roadside vista gives us the right place to see the beautiful landscape of the heavenly realms in which we live in Christ. The cross is the place to look with a different view on my life and its opportunities for good works to God’s glory. For there on the cross “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Amen. <SDG>