UNION WITH GOD BY THE CROSS

What do we get through the cross?-Forgiveness of sins, reconciliation. “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” 1 Peter 3:18. “That He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross.” It is the cross, then, that unites us to God, and makes us one with Him. Everything then that is a real cross is life to us, because it brings us to God. Take the things that come to us; new duties, perhaps, are revealed to us; sins, it may be, are shown to us, that must be denied. Different things come up that cut directly across our habits and our own way and convenience. We can take then in a hard and cheerless way, groaning over our religion, and giving everybody that comes near a the idea that it does not agree with us, but that we must endure the service of Christ, hoping that by and by we shall get something better, when we get out of this grinding service. Or we can find joy in the cross, and salvation and peace and rest, by recognising that cross as the cross of Christ.CRCH 1.3