The Cross Centered Life (Part 4)

It has been said that pursuing happiness apart from Christ is like deer hunting. The pursuer is entranced by capturing a beautiful specimen, but often ends up with a bloody carcass.

Living life led by feelings can lead to disasters. That is why C.J. Mahaney turns his attention to subjectivism, which he defines as basing our view of God on our changing feelings and emotions. He challenges readers to consider, “Are you going to build your life on what you feel or on what is real?[i] He writes that we should stop looking inward and look outward at the work of Christ on our behalf.


[i] C.J. Mahaney, The Cross Centered Life. Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2002, p. 51.

The Cross Centered Life (Part 3)

One of the first things I wrote for public consumption was mired in shame. I was in Grade 2. A poem I wrote about a classmate who was often a target of hostility spread to my classmates. The teacher who became concerned because of its cruel words assumed a particularly troublesome student was responsible for the poem. I remember cleaning tables with the accused while the teacher questioned him. I was silent.

After the incident, the intensity of my guilt grew; not only had I written the poem, but I let someone else take the blame.

The incident dogged me for years. I almost confessed. I had my opportunity. It was Grade 8 graduation night and I was eating cake and chatting with the teachers. But I couldn’t bring myself to fess up. Even now, exactly a decade to the month from that graduation, I retain a twinge of guilt for not admitting the truth.

After dissecting legalism, C.J. Mahaney turns to condemnation in his book The Cross Centered Life. He writes that while we all struggle with condemnation Christians can rest in the knowledge of God’s saving forgiveness because of the cross. “The punishment He received was for you. His resurrection is proof that God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice. The sins of your past and the sin you just committed were all atoned for; you need carry their weight no more.”[i]

As Paul wrote: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1).

Charles Spurgeon put it this way: “Mark, beloved, in the next place, that this removal of the curse from us, when it does take place, is an entire removal. It is not a part of the curse which is taken away. Christ doth not stand at the foot of Sinai, and say, "Thunders! diminish your force;" he doth not catch here and there a lightning, and bind its wings; nay, but when he cometh he bloweth away all the smoke, he putteth aside all the thunder, he quencheth all the lightning; he removeth it all. When Christ pardoneth, he pardoneth all sin; the sins of twice ten thousand years he pardons in an hour.”[ii]

I find that very encouraging.

Oh. And to Melinda and Jimmy. I’m sorry.

[i] C.J. Mahaney, The Cross Centered Life. Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2002, p. 43.
[ii] Charles Spurgeon, The Curse Removed. Published 15 June 1911. Accessed 10 June 2006. Available: http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/3254.htm

The Cross Centered Life (Part 2)

I bought a pair of pants for $39.99 yesterday. A coupon for my mom’s reward points program I brought with me would only be accepted for purchases $40.00 or more. I was one penny short.

Later that night it occurred to me how this incident partly illustrates imputation.

A recent edition of the White Horse Inn, a radio program hosted by Michael Horton, featured an interviewer who asked participants at an evangelical pastor’s convention whether they were familiar with the doctrine of imputation. They weren’t: 67 % were unfamiliar including many who admitted they had never heard the word before.[i]

With that alarming statistic in mind, should it be shocking that 68 % of self-identified ‘evangelicals’ polled last year affirmed that a “good person who isn’t of your religious faith (can) go to heaven or attain salvation”? Almost 80 % of all the interviewees felt that being good assured entrance into heaven.[ii]

But salvation by “being good” is wrong because it negates the necessity for imputation.
Imputation means that the guilt of Christians’ sins has been reckoned unto Christ. That’s why Horton says imputation is the heart of justification, which is at the heart of the gospel.

John Piper says: “Thus justification has these two sides: the removal of sin because Christ bears our curse, and the imputation of righteousness because we are in Christ and His righteousness is counted as ours.”[iii]

The Bible verse he references is 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

In other words, God imputes (or credits) perfect obedience to our account.

And that brings me back to the purchase of the pants. Even though I was only one penny short, I was unable to meet the requirement. That I was spending $39.99 did not matter.

Someone who does thousands of good works will still “fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) That’s because no one is able to meet God’s requirement (of perfection) to inherit heaven without the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.

To believe entrance to heaven is earned is legalism. C.J. Mahaney defines legalism as “seeking to achieve forgiveness from God and acceptance by God through obedience to God.”[iv] He adds “a legalist is anyone who behaves as if they can earn God’s approval and forgiveness through personal performance.”[v]

A. W. Pink wrote that to preach anything but salvation through faith by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness is to rob God of His glory and the believer of his peace.[vi]


[i] “Understanding Imputation.” 7 May 2006. White Horse Inn. Accessed 10 May 2006. Available: http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/
[ii] Newsweek/BeliefNet Poll Results. August 2005. Accessed 10 June 2006. Available: ">http://www.beliefnet.com/story/173/story_17353_1.html
[iii] John Piper, God is the Gospel. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2005. p. 43.
[iv] C.J. Mahaney, The Cross Centered Life. Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2002, p. 25.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] A.W. Pink, Redeemer’s Return. Chapter 7 (i). Accessed 10 June 2006. Available: ">http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pink/return.ch7.i.html

The Cross Centered Life (Part 1)

As a teenager I would skim the shelves at the library and pull out interesting-looking books to investigate further. The books were almost always new-looking. As illogical as it was, I was motivated by an assumption that newer was better.

According to C.J. Mahaney, I’m not alone in this thinking. “There’s nothing wrong with being new or better,” he writes. “Our problem is that we have come to see these two adjectives as synonymous – as if anything new is always better, and if something is better it must be new.” [i]

As he pointed out, sometimes new is good. A just-out-of-the-box pair of runners is more desirable than shoes with holes.

Yet Mahaney reminds us that while new things always arise, “according to God, only one thing will ever be best.”[ii] That is, “He sent His Son into the world to live a perfect life and go to the cross to bear His wrath for sinners like you and me.”[iii]

This is the truth that the church can revaluate itself against. Indeed the church is to always be changing. ‘Ecclesia semper reformanda’ which translates ‘the church always need to be reformed’ was a Reformation rallying cry.

In the pursuit to change, however, creativity can trump sound doctrine. Take Rev. Andrew Linzey for instance. Two years ago, he wrote a liturgy for British Anglicans to use “which sets out prayers for the soul of the animal slaughtered to provide the traditional Sunday meal.”[iv]

Mr. Linzey said: “It is only right that Christians should repent of their sins towards animals.”[v] Perhaps. The liturgy may be creative, but is certainly not innovative. Pagans practice a ritual called the Rite of Passage, which they believe helps the “souls of animals pass over the threshold of death.”[vi]

This reminds me of Ecclesiastes 1:9-11: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new?’ It has been already in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.”

Mahaney challenges readers to ask themselves what they are most passionate about. He says that things like family, evangelism, careers and politics are important, but should not be the raison d’etre of Christians. He quotes Paul. “I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:1,3).

As Mahaney asserts, “Nothing else – not even things that are biblical and honourable – are of equal or greater importance.”[vii]








[i] C.J. Mahaney, The Cross Centered Life. Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2002, p. 21.
[ii] Ibid., p. 22.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] “Anglicans asked to pray for their dinner.” Birmingham Post. 4 Oct. 2004. Accessed 5 Oct. 2004. Available: <http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/post/ tm_objectid=14716435&method=full&siteid=50002&headline= anglicans-asked-to-pray-for-their-dinner-name_page.html>
[v] Ibid.
[vi] “Rite of Release.” The Mystica. Accessed 9 June 2006.
[vii] Mahaney, p. 22.

The Cross Centered Life (Introduction)

Family Matters was among my favourite television shows when I was growing up. I remembered the show based on the Winslow family to be clean and funny entertainment. That’s why I was pleased when my younger brother recently lent me several tapes of Family Matters episodes.

I saw several today. As I watched, it became apparent that something was awry. The show I once loved to watch Friday nights was much different than I had imagined it to be.

The jokes were crass, the plots were predictable, and most troubling, the characters were deceitful. For example, in one episode Eddie and Steve smashed Laura’s computer but they lied instead of telling her the truth. Laura also avoided telling the truth when she borrowed and subsequently lost her mom’s earrings in another storyline. Laura broke her commitment to spend time with her dad Carl, while several shows later, Carl rescinded on his commitment to hangout with Steve.

A life lesson is built into the end of each episode’s plot; the characters hug, the crowd claps and music plays. The lessons learned lists off like the curriculum of a scouting manual: Don’t keep secrets from each other, tell the truth, forgive others, cheaters don’t prosper, beauty is in the eye of the beholder…

They are all good lessons, but do not compare to the profound truth of the Gospel.

“Sometimes the most obvious truths are the ones we need to be reminded of the most,”[i] wrote C.J. Mahaney in his book The Cross Centered Life. The book emphasizes Christianity’s core truth. Namely, that Jesus died in the place for His people, thereby ensuring complete forgiveness.

“Too many of us have moved on from that glorious plan,” writes Mahaney. “In our never-ending desire to move forward and make sure that everything we do, say and think is relevant to modern living, too many of us have stopped concentrating on the wonders of Jesus crucified.”[ii]

My friends Joel and Kristy are reading through C.J. Mahaney's Living the Cross Centered Life. Joel intends to blog their reflections, so I thought I would join them. Our books are different, but the topic is the same.

I expect our study will be more edifying than Family Matters.

[i] C.J. Mahaney, The Cross Centered Life. Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2002, p. 15.
[ii] Ibid, p. 17.