crossIt’s interesting to read through your comments. There seems to be so much pressure.

Can we take the pressure off?

Today I want you to concentrate on one thought in your quiet time.

The power of the cross is not in what you do, but in what has already been done for you.

This is not a competition. It’s not a pass/fail. All this week we’ll unpack what it means to rest in what was done on the cross for you. Steven James, in Story, says:

The gifts of the Master are these: freedom, life, hope, new direction, transformation, and intimacy with God. If the cross was the end of the story, we would have no hope. But the cross isn’t the end. Jesus didn’t escape from death; he conquered it and opened the way to heaven for all who will dare to believe. The truth of this moment, if we let it sweep over us, is stunning. It means Jesus really is who he claimed to be, we are really as lost as he said we are, and he really is the only way for us to intimately and spiritually connect with God again.

As you begin this week, I want you to spiritually rest in what Jesus has already done for you. Consider it less a task, and more that you are opening gifts that have long awaited you.

Resist those thoughts that try to delay the opening of those gifts, like:

  • Why am I even doing this?
  • Jesus doesn’t want to spend time with me
  • Is this doing any good?

Do so by simply writing this down in your journal. Speak it out loud. Thank Jesus for what He has already done, for the gifts that await you over the next month, and for a lifetime. When you tap into the power of this simple thought of the week, it means you are free to discover and explore what it means to:

  • live in relationship rather than condemnation (Romans 8:1-3)
  • rest in His love (Romans 8:38-39)
  • trust that He knows what you want to say when there seems to be no words (Romans 8:26-27)

How is your time with Jesus unfolding?

What does today’s verses speak to you?

What might it mean if you started to believe that the power of the cross was less about what you did, or didn’t do, or what you were supposed to be doing, or what someone else was doing, and simply became about what He has already done for you?