Rich Kao

As I walk with God, I find more and more what those wise old saints are talking about when they speak of the cross; it's indeed the path to life.   Everything must pass through the cross if we want abundant life and maturity.  Here's the really cool part; it's not like I thought..."embracing the cross" is not some spartan, quaker, take-your-medicine like discipline.  In fact, once you're tasted it, you want it.  It's not embracing the cross with gritted teeth because you know it's good for us; No, rather it's hugging the cross with a sense of relief and rest and delight because that's where we know our safety and His glory lie.  The affection is there, hence the hug is there.  This will be the title of my new (imaginery) book that I don't have the time or skill to write, but I like the title anyway.

Here's the lead in to my first big thought: The cross -- letting go of our way and our timing and bowing to God's -- is the key to multiplication, and bounty, and more-than-when-the-grain-and-the-new-wine-abounds kind of life (Ps 4:7).  God wants us to have open skies (Mt. 3:16 - the heavens opened) and traffic in multiplication (Mt. 3:16 - dove upon us).  But the key is the cross (i.e. embracing righteousness which is embracing God's agenda; "Permit it at this (God's) timing"; submitting to God's timetable, God's method - Mt. 3:15).

If we don't bow to the cross we stay in the realm of our own strength, our own soul, and we keep a lid on ourselves.  We actually limit ourselves to ourselves.  But when we embrace the cross, the cross becomes a lid blower and we enter and traffic in God's realm -- amazing supply, power, wisdom, anointing -- that's open sky living.  (Changing my mind:  maybe my book title should be "Open Sky Living;" I'll have to debate this with myself).  

Did you catch that?  When you live in your own soul, your own strength, your own plans, your own timing, you actually put a lid on yourself!  You limit yourself and your potential to yourself.  But when you hug the cross, you blow the lid off and come into God's realm.  You move from closed skies to open skies.  God becomes your inheritance, not yourself.  The God of Jeshurun, the hertitage of Jacob is your portion (Deut. 33:26; Is. 58:13-14), and what a big portion that is!  Hug the cross today.  (Actually, it's not an event, but a lifestyle).