We are condemned to salvation through the Cross of Christ.                            – Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, Feb. 2nd

This one sentence stood out to me as I was reading, “we are condemned to salvation.” Condemned to salvation, it sounded so ironic when I first read it. How can ones salvation be compared to being condemned, to being sentenced to death instead of being saved to life?  It stood out to me because I never would have put these two words together in my own mind, yet I knew they belonged together when I read them.

It made me recall my own salvation and how it did indeed strike my heart as a death sentence at the time and how like any dying person I struggled against it. It was a death sentence to living for myself and according to my own will and learning to live for Him and another Kingdom.   Before salvation can be a life sentence, it must be first a death sentence to our old nature, for there can be no living to God, without first dying to this world. There is no heaven apart from entering by way of the cross.

I hear much preaching today about how Christianity is good because it brings about a better life, a happier life,  a more peaceful life, a more successful life, a more balanced life, but this kind of preaching falls short of the life Christ calls us to live, for all these center around seeking one’s life from this world and trying to save it in order to enjoy this world more and gain more of it – not more of Christ.

This is not the Christian way of life, but a counterfeit Christianity wearing a  Christian cloak as a cover in order to pursue more personal pleasure without any holy fear of judgment over sin.  Our hearts have become dull, our eyes heavy and blind and our ears deaf to the Gospel’s call of repentance and salvation.  All that is heard instead is the slick promise of grace, the serpents spliced tongue whispering not to fear, for God will not follow through on his promise to judge the world of sin, and it could not possibly include you, you are covered by the grace umbrella, you are free to relax and do what you will, everyone is a sinner, so it does not matter that you are saved yet you are still quite the sinner. Who isn’t?

Holy fear is quenched and calmed by the serpent’s false comfort. Prayers for salvation from sin to the Almighty God through the blood of Jesus Christ are quenched before they can even stir up the heart and find their way out of our lips. Would-be Christians are inoculated to the saving grace of the gospel and live a life enjoying the temporary pleasures of sin, trusting in the salvation of Christ one day instead of spending time on their knees pleading to God to finish the good work He began in them and save them completely from their sins as He promised. Are they truly saved? I have no assurance  because I see no deliverance, no saving work, of God overtaking their lives.  I only know this, that  The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. (1John 3:7-10) and He did not fail.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” – Mark 8:34-36

Because of our lack of emphasizing a sacrificial death of our own lives as the way of the cross, we see many Christians pursing their own life in this world attempting to gain more of it and calling that pursuit Christianity. They have received a false gospel message and cling to false hopes and comforts of heaven. They have attempted to enter into eternal life, into God’s promise of heaven without entering through the cross of Christ but by another door, which is no door at all, a door deceptively marked as grace, but is actually a door of latitude for sin which they call liberty in Christ. Into this door, they proudly and lovingly carry all their sins with them refusing to leave anything of this world behind for they love it too much to let go. They would have this world and heaven too or they would not have heaven at all.

Jesus will not save us from this world if we refuse to let it go and continue to cling to it as our life instead of Him. We must let it go and cling to Christ alone no matter how painful the process. For Christ gives us His own life if we but give Him our dying, diseased ones, nailing them to the cross with Him. It is a good trade, but so many don’t want His life.  They want this life and refuse His offer choosing rather to perish in their sin.

Jesus warns us to count the cost of following Him. Luke 14:25-33.  But like many things, many attempt to buy into Christianity without counting the cost, or without being told of the true cost for there are many street vendors out there who will are more than willing to sell them a cheaper imitation.

Everyone loves a genuine product, but not everyone is willing to pay the higher price for the genuine when a cheaper imitation that looks just as good is so freely and widely available on the market. The imitation of the Christian life is out there but it will not hold under affliction for it’s threads of faith are cheaply made and it will not gain you entrance into heaven for the invitation is counterfeit. “The Lord knows those who are his, Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.”(2 Timothy 2:19)

The genuine gospel, is a message of good news, a message of personal peace and reconciliation to be had with God the Father through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a message of forgiveness of our debts and sins against God. It is a message of salvation and deliverance from sins in this life. It is a promise of eternal life through the Cross of  Christ.

We must choose which life we value more.  If we would enter into the life of Christ, the life of a Christian, then we must enter into the death of Christ. Christianity is very much a call to live, but we must not ignore it’s call to die.

For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:13) Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. (Colossians 3:5)