He was separated from the cross
But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Galatians 6:14
As I read this verse, I saw a picture of the cross and Jesus being separated from it after His death on it. That old cross was thrown away and is long gone. Jesus was laid in a tomb that He used for only three days. Then He got up and walked out and that is when He became my Savior. He was always the Son of God, but not until He nailed my sin to the cross did He become my Savior. When He was taken off the cross, that sin, suffering, shame, sickness and separation went with the cross. Eternal life, resurrection, relationship and revelation went with Jesus. When that cross was thrown away, my sin went with it. Jesus was laid in a tomb, but after three days He rose up and that is when my life began. The story then follows Jesus, not the cross. Now I am in Christ Jesus who carries my wholeness! The cross has been destroyed and my sin with it.
In today’s verse, Paul says don’t ever let it be said that I brag about anything except the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. In other words, he was saying the only thing that matters is my sin was thrown away with that cross. I walk in newness and wholeness with my risen Savior Jesus. In Him the world has been crucified to me and in Him I have been crucified to the world. Now the ways of the world have been thrown away and put far from me, just as the cross was move far from Jesus. He draws a line in time at the cross and when Jesus was separated from it and the sin of the world. That’s when the world died to him and he died to the world. Of course we know that happened at the point when he received His salvation, but he looks back to that moment in time when sin was nail to the cross and names that as his separation moment from the world’s ways.
Paul concludes this letter to the Galatians by saying: nothing else matters in this life. Not physical works, but only becoming a new creation in Him. Lastly he says, I bear in my body the marks of the LORD Jesus. He identified himself with Jesus as a branding that he belongs to God, not to the world.
Today I want to encourage you to look at the moment in time of the cross as the point you were separated from your sin. Even though it was 2000 years later when you received your salvation, your sin, past, present and future was nailed to the cross that day with Jesus. Now, even though it is 2000 years later when you walked away from your sin and received newness in life, you can see that it happened when Jesus was separated from your sin, suffering, shame, sickness and separation from God. Now you are a new creation, branded with the name Christian saying that you not only identify with Him, you belong to Him!
Today’s scripture reading: Galatians 6:11-18
The Daily Dose 