“Do you think that your fathers are watching? That they weigh you in their ledgerbook? Against what?”
I do think that. I am surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, by my fathers and their fathers. I am burdened by their example and witness and standard they set. But they cannot weigh me in their ledgerbook.
Instead, I must reckon with God. And “who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” Therefore, “as it is written, ‘For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’” (Romans 8:33-34, 36)
Christ, who condemns me and so was condemned for me, has invited me to make up in my flesh that which is yet lacking in his sufferings for the sake of a few of his sheep. For his sake, and not to satisfy the law of my fathers’ example or, worse, one of my own devising, I am killed all day long and my sinful flesh is put to death. Because of his grace and compassion, he has begun forming me in the shape of his Cross, granting me a cruciform identity. In my children, I have found my cross, and in my cross I have found the comfort, peace, joy, and inestimably strange and wonderful privilege of the imitation of Christ my Savior.
I do think that. I am surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, by my fathers and their fathers. I am burdened by their example and witness and standard they set. But they cannot weigh me in their ledgerbook.
Instead, I must reckon with God. And “who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” Therefore, “as it is written, ‘For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’” (Romans 8:33-34, 36)
Christ, who condemns me and so was condemned for me, has invited me to make up in my flesh that which is yet lacking in his sufferings for the sake of a few of his sheep. For his sake, and not to satisfy the law of my fathers’ example or, worse, one of my own devising, I am killed all day long and my sinful flesh is put to death. Because of his grace and compassion, he has begun forming me in the shape of his Cross, granting me a cruciform identity. In my children, I have found my cross, and in my cross I have found the comfort, peace, joy, and inestimably strange and wonderful privilege of the imitation of Christ my Savior.
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