I’m reading C.J. Mahaney’s great little book Living the Cross Centered Life and am finding it a rich and powerful read. Al Mohler says in the foreward: “I need to warn you that reading this book will not be a safe and static experience. After all, the cross isn’t about playing it safe; it’s about being found safe in Christ - and that is the most exhilarating experience a human can ever know.”
Here is what Mahaney says might be some symptoms of not living a cross centered life:
- You often lack joy.
- You’re not consistently growing in spiritual maturity
- Your love for God lacks passion
- You’re always looking for some new technique, some “new truth” or new experience to pull all the pieces of your faith together.
He then says that if you learn to live a cross centered life, you’ll learn…
- how to break free from joy-robbing, legalistic thinking and living
- how to leave behind the crippling effects of guilt and condemnation
- how to stop basing your faith on your emotions and circumstances
- how to grow in gratefulness, joy and holiness
I definitely want to live a cross centered life - a life that walks in all the power and promise that Christ gives us through His work on the cross. Life has meaning lived in this way. There is really no other way to live.
