KEEPING FOCUSED

When Christ is anywhere but centred in our Theology, we get a warped view of our mission and our message. Christ crucified keeps us focused on redemption. If we take any other truth concerning Him and place it in the centre, Jesus becomes something other than the Saviour. Take the cross out of the equation, and Jesus becomes history’s greatest con man, and the Church its greatest fraud. Remove the cross, and you can set your Bible on the same shelf as Grimm’s fairy tales. When you try to stitch together an adequate philosophy of life from the Scriptures without the cross, you have a collection of platitudes without purpose. When the cross is moved off centre, our vision is distorted. It is only when the cross is centred that we see Him as He truly is: The Lamb slain for our sins and worthy to receive glory and honour and power. Without the cross, sin remains, hope is gone, death is final, life is empty, and love searches aimlessly for an adequate definition. - David B. Crabtree