Though the cross can be worn as jewelry made of gold or other precious metals, the cross that Jesus bids us to carry has nothing of beauty in it. In “The Radical Cross“, A. W. Tozer writes:

It was an instrument of death. Slaying men was its only function. Men did not wear that cross; but that cross wore men. It stood naked until a man was pinned on it, a living man fastened like some grotesque stickpin on its breast to writhe and groan till death stilled and silenced him. That is the cross. Nothing less. And when it is robbed of its tears and blood and pain it is the cross no longer.

As we make our annual pilgrimage to Easter this Lent, may we understand the cross hairs centre of faith in the One who died on the cross to reconcile us to Himself. 

As Tozer explains,

The cross of Christ did not influence God to love us, did not increase that love by one degree, did not open any fount of grace or mercy in His heart. He had loved us from old eternity and needed nothing to stimulate that love. The cross is not responsible for God’s love; rather it was His love which conceived the cross as the one method by which we [could be reconciled to Him].

The Place of the Cross in the Lives of the Reconciled

Everyone who’s been reconciled since the cross is reconciled by looking back at the cross:

[Grace] did not come when Christ was born in a manger. It did not come when Christ was baptized or anointed of the Spirit. It did not come when He died on a cross; it did not come when He rose from he dead. It did not come when He went to the Father’s right hand. Grace came from the ancient beginning through Jesus Christ the eternal Son and was manifest on the cross of Calvary, in fiery blood and tears and sweat and death. But it has always been operative from the beginning.

What is Grace?

Grace is an incomprehensibly immense and overwhelming plentitude of kindness and goodness. If we could remember it, we wouldn’t have to be played with and entertained so much. If we could only remember the grace of God toward us who have nothing but demerit, we would be overwhelmed by this incomprehensibly immense attribute, so vast, so huge, that nobody can ever grasp it or hope to understand it.

Grace is the way God is

Grace is the way God is – it is God being God:

When God shows grace He isn’t being dramatic; He’s acting like God. He’ll never act any other way but like God…

If [you] want to know this immeasurable grace, this overwhelming, astounding kindness of God, ]you need only] step under the shadow of the cross.

May you find grace as you step under the shadow of the Cross

This is more enigma than dogma.