Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Cross (as in the Cross of Christ) (08/17/06)
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TITLE: Cross my heart with love | Previous Challenge Entry
By Frank Salerni
08/17/06 -
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It was in the words of the famous hymn, “The Old Rugged Cross” that stood back and viewed the cross of Christ from a new perspective.
“The emblem of suffering and pain,” began to change it’s meaning for me, now that I was born again.
So, without taking anything away from the song, I would like to add to its beauty.
The cross for me is… what I was. A symbol of the fleshly desires to stand against all that would come against me.
Rugged, bold, sinister and unfeeling at best, in all honesty it complimented my worldly state.
Mind you, I would not have said that about myself if I were still an unregenerate sinner.
But the cross of pain and suffering, although wonderfully perfect as a torture chamber turned inside out for all the world to see, was replaced in my life by another “type” or “shadow.”
It is the empty tomb!
By it, I see a shedding of the skin that was nailed to the cross.
When I peer inside, instead of a gruesome rotting shell of a man, I see myself from God’s perspective.
Clean and empty of decaying flesh. I have the same spirit as Christ in me, capable of rolling away the stone that kept me a captive of hell.
Oh, I’m well aware of that old man that wants to resurrect it’s self over and over again, but an empty tomb reminds me of why I was born again, where I’m going, what I have to gain, rather than a cross of shame.
I will always have a desire to embrace the work of the cross, knowing that Jesus suffered and died in my place, and never regard it as a simple thing.
But, I choose to accept the promise of freedom by faith and not of any work toward redemption that I could do for myself.
That brings me to another song whose words also ring out true in its simplicity, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so.”
I will cross my heart with the love of Christ, and stand in the shelter of its shadow.
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