Lesson 9 Fighting in the Shadow of the Cross

Question 1

“Divine Love is incessantly restless until it turns all woundedness into health, all deformity into beauty and all embarrassment into laughter” --Beldon Lane
Friend, we’ve all done wrong things, bad things, mean and hurtful things, and downright sinful things. And we know that gluttony is a sin, but since it is a socially acceptable sin, it is easy to pretend that it is a sin that doesn’t matter that much. We might even make jokes about it or tease each other about it, but it really isn’t funny. And in God’s eyes, it is a sin just like the more offensive ones, but the good news is that divine love is relentless. It’s coming after you! Pursuing you and won’t stop until it gets you! Subdues you! Crushes you! Rebuilds you!
And what is divine love? It’s a cross on a hill! It’s the Lamb of God who became sin to take away your sin. It’s a relentless love that suffered pain and death for you! And it’s a risen Messiah who conquered sin and death for you!
And why is divine cross-love incessantly restless? Because it wants to turn your woundedness into health. Yes, your horrible past, those long years of pain, that sin nobody knows about, that thing you did that’s unspeakable, those times you defiled your conscience and pierced yourself through with so many griefs. That’s what the divine love of the cross wants to heal and bring to health in you.
This divine cross-love wants to turn your deformity into beauty. Your deformed past, deformed body, all made beautiful because God “makes all things beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
And this incessant red-hot, on fire cross-love, is going to turn your embarrassment into laughter! The cross is going to make you smile again! Why? Because the cross took your guilt, shame, sin, past, and disappointing mistakes, killed them all, and buried them in a tomb!
And now the Lord is going to break you out of your Egypt, the house of slavery where you suffered so much, and you’re going to walk with your head held high again, with true joy in your soul! “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high” (Leviticus 26:13).

Question 1. What does it mean to you that the Lord is going to bring you out of Egypt, set you free, lift your head up, and make you smile again?

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