The death of Christ was an event of incredible gravity which continues to draw multitudes to it even as the collapse of a colossal star does the heavens, demonstrating more force in its period of darkness than in the time of its first light.
Too often we block our own view of Christ. Yet when we look around ourselves and our present circumstances to the cross and who we are in Him, we suddenly discover fresh beauties to behold.
In dying, Christ spread his arms to receive sinners. Do you not expect bearing your cross involves opening your arms to them, too?
We must resist holding Christ up as merely the moral mirror by whose example we scrutinize our own and others’ behavior; we must see him first and foremost for who he is, and for what he has accomplished, as ends in themselves, moving us to express awe, faith and thanks.
On Friendship
Friendship typically involves sharing time, affection, and goods with others. Most often we form these bonds with ones whom we expect will reciprocate our care and beneficence more or less equally. But deeper still, being a friend can mean investing oneself with the welfare of others disproportionately, even one-sidedly. When we are only kind to others for what we might get in return, and only make friends with those who repay our efforts, we lose true friendship and become mercenary.
Pure friendship means resolving to love someone, and the quality of a friendship is determined by the extent to which either party fulfills the law of love.
“What is desired in a man is steadfast love.” [Prov. 19:22]
“A man of many companions may come to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” [Prov. 18:24]
No person has demonstrated greater love to us than Jesus Christ, in that He forfeited His life for our sake when the stakes were totally unequal. He proved Himself the ultimate friend of man, our literal best-friend-forever.
“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” [Romans 5:8]
If our example of ideal friendship is Christ, how then should we behave in our relationships with others?
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” [1 John 3:16]
Something to think about.
Every good we experience is either an immeasurable grace purchased by Christ’s suffering in our stead, or an unpaid grant to be accounted for by fearful, future justice upon ourselves.
Poem, “The Testament”
By law, we felt sin’s weight upon us.
By gospel, saw the ransom paid.
By faith, believed Christ’s death accomplished
the testament: God’s heirs, he made
of sinners, sons of glory now.
His enemies, he drew near by grace.
— Michael Spotts:.
http://www.michaelspotts.com
