One Claim, One Cross

Galatians 6:14

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Since when has our human flesh - that is, our corrupt nature, imperfect judgment and our self-centeredness ever guided us well? How many score of times each day do we veer off the right way? The estimation we have of ourselves is skewed. Nobody on earth thinks as well of me as I do of myself. Nobody regards me as so important because they have their own advantages and benefits to consider.

I don't say a majority of people are crass braggarts. We are only more sophisticated in our boasting. Unconcealed showing off begins to pale with maturity, but not because we don't think we have neat things about ourselves worth mentioning. It's because blowing your own horn usually receives disapproval from those who find it objectionable to have themselves upstaged. We just get better at our self-pride (or worse as the case many be). Look in a mirror once and simply say, "You are so full of yourself!"

We are incredibly narcissistic. It is not just the cocky end-zone hot-dogger or the gyrating celebrity bimbo who thinks she's such hot stuff. It's not just the neighborhood wind-bag or the mother of whose children you are always hearing are so textbook perfect. No, its all who scorn them and consider their own conduct superior or admirable. Prim little old ladies can be exceedingly judgmental and vain. Well-dressed, well-educated, well-mannered and well-healed professionals can be remarkably arrogant.

No class, age, or situation can inoculate us against the sin of our own big head and big talk, even if we keep our opinion private. "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" [Romans 7:24]

Only one object is deserving of true honor. And it is alien to us.

The cross.

The cross displaces every conceit of our human flesh because flesh is crucified upon it. Whose flesh? Our human flesh in the man Jesus. The cross was ours. We built it. We earned it. We ought to have had our own smug, supercilious booties nailed there. Since when did we make the cross someone else's symbol? Distant from us upon a steeple or ambiguous in a politician's political ad?

The cross was taken from me. The cross was carried by another. The cross had impaled upon it my Substitute, my Savior. All that I deserved fell upon Him.

The cross is now the object of our one legitimate boast - not because we did anything there or can take personal pride in a decision to venerate the sacrifice offered on it - but because once and for all every part of those airs and gall and pretense I manufacture, and which is opposed to God, has been crucified. Because of what Jesus did and suffered all association between the world of conceit and selfishness and who I am as a child of God has ended. Self-pride is dead. Self-justification is defunct and useless.

The Christian may now see himself or herself in the flesh of Christ - and know that God honors us, not for anything by us or from us, but through the cross of his beloved Son. In the morning, when you get up, make the sign of the cross and say, "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Don't just put a cross on a door plaque or on the wall or suspended under your rear view mirror. Proclaim it as the singular pride of your life in contrast to which everything else means nothing.