March 19, 2022
Day 17
What does it mean to be crucified? A.W. Tozer suggested three things:
First, the man who is crucified faces only one direction. If something is happening behind him, he is not exactly doing a 180 to see what’s transpiring. Looking backwards is now over. He looks forward now to God and His purposes and His commission for his life. No more with things as they used to be, but forward to the Spirit-filled life and all the implications of that for the future.
Second, the man on the cross is not going back. On a cross, you have said your good-byes. Your old life is finished. The ways of your former life have been left far behind. In Loving God Charles Colson tells the story of Mickey Cohen, the Hollywood gangster. Part of the West Coast underworld was led to Christ in the early days of Billy Graham. The guy who led him to the Lord was concerned, however, when after a short time he went back to his old ways of doing things, his old friends. So, Cohen was confronted. His retort: “Hey, c’mon, you got Christian athletes, Christian businessmen, Christian actors, what’s so wrong with a Christian gangster.”
Third, the man on the cross has no more plans of his own. Someone else is now making your plans. All plans disappear when you have been pinned to a gibbet. Busy-beaver “what-should-we-be-rushing-about doing-just-now” plans cease. Only the plans of God suffice now for the one who has taken the cross seriously.
Dr. Matt Friedeman