Stumbling Toward EternitySample

THE CENTER OF THE CONVERSATION

We are amid a cultural shaking that has left much of the church exposed and reeling. If we are to nav­igate these troubled times, we must relearn how to inter­pret the ideological battles raging around us through the lens of the gospel.

If we remove the offense of the gospel, we lose Jesus. I am not suggesting we be offensive, but indifference should never be our goal. The Jesus who commanded His followers to “take up [your] cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24) is being replaced with a new kind of Jesus who does not command but only suggests.

It makes sense that Paul referred to the cross as a “stum­bling block” (1 Corinthians 1:23). There is something offensive about a seemingly helpless, humiliated man dying the death of a common criminal and then being called the Savior of the world. Yet for Christians, the cross and its crucified God-man lie at the center of all meaningful discourse.

Why? Because the heartbeat of the gospel is not the wrath of God but the love of God. His wrath is simply His love violated. This is the God who “so loved the world, that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). On the cross, God takes the worst that humanity can produce—an instrument of total hatred and cruelty—and commandeers it. Love transforms this instrument of torture into a vehicle for God’s saving grace.

It may seem primitive, one might even say offen­sive, to speak so passionately about the murder of a Jew­ish teacher who lived two thousand years ago. But anyone looking into the claims of Jesus is forced into a corner where a decision is required. Either He was God then, which means He is God now, or He was a madman who accidentally set the world on fire.

All I can say is that if Jesus is not God's Son, then I must worship the ones who invented Him. For when I come to the cross, I am silenced. My illusions are exposed and overthrown. This is the place where our stories are brought into the light. This is the place where original sin is replaced by what is more original still: Grace.

This cross is the center from which we stumble toward eternity.

How does keeping the cross at the center of your perspective change the way you talk with others about difficult topics?