“Crucified Through Weakness”

"Crucified Through Weakness"  

  

    "For though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you" (II Corinthians 13:4).

    "Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might" (Ephesians 6:10).

    The Lord Jesus Christ embraced the very extremity of weakness as He submitted Himself to a cross that impaled His hands and feet.  He could seemingly do nothing while hanging upon His tree.  Every appearance gave indication to stillness, emptiness, and despair as the ministry of miracles seemingly came to its end.  "He saved others. Himself He cannot save" (Matthew 27:42).  The very Creator of the universe became helpless as a lamb - "I am poured out like water… My heart is melted" (Psalm 22:14).  "Crucified through weakness…"

    The Savior gave Himself to such frailty because Adam and his race gave themselves to such pride.  Utterly dependent upon God for "life and breath and all things", our native spiritual and moral bent nevertheless deceives us into believing that we can make our own way (Acts 17:25).  "The pride of life" tells us that we are "as gods", possessed of our own inherent ability and knowledge (I John 2:16; Genesis 3:5).  Reality smacks us in the face over and over again, indicting our arrogance and painfully revealing our abject impotence apart from the living God.  We require the being and breath He gives to even make our headlong flight from Him.   Little wonder that the Apostle Paul declared the human mind apart from Christ as "reprobate", or unable to be used for its intended purpose (Romans 1:28).  And little wonder that the Lord Jesus had to embrace the extreme measure of His cross of weakness in order to save us from our utterly wicked and insane delusion of pride.  "Crucified through weakness…"

    For all who believe in the Savior's sacrifice, the mad flight comes to its end.  Indeed, God provides salvation without works because the notion that we can work constitutes the very essence of sin.  We cannot exist apart from God - "it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves" (Psalm 100:3).  We cannot continue apart from God -  "by Him all things consist" (Colossians 1:17).  And we cannot do anything that we do apart from God - "in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).  The new birth in Christ stills us, demanding that we bring nothing to the spiritual cradle because we have nothing to bring.  We die, in the sense of acknowledging that the pride of life is, again, utterly wicked and insane delusion.  "Crucified through weakness…"

    We do well to begin our days in loving and grateful remembrance that our Creator embraced our weakness in order to save us from our delusion.  Indeed, the Lord Jesus possessed "life in Himself" (John 5:26).  He lived His earthly lifetime, however, according to the life He found in His Father - "I live by the Father" (John 6:57).  Thus, we also do well to greet each new day in the acknowledgement of the Divine provision of "life and breath and all things", and the human need of "without Me, ye can do nothing" (Acts 17:25; John 15:5).  Thereby, we "live with Him by the power of God…"

"We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."

(Philippians 3:3)

"LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am."

(Psalm 39:4)

Weekly Memory Verse 

   One thing have I desire of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.

(Psalm 27:4)