Focus our Lives Around the Cross
First,
Jesus told Nicodemus that he needed to be born again. Secondly, that he needed
to refocus his life around the cross. Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the
snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who
believes in Him may have eternal life.” Jesus was talking about refocusing our lives
around the cross. Only what Christ does
on the cross will last. When we die,
only the cross of Christ will make the difference between heaven and hell.
Nicodemus
knew the story of Moses and the bronze snake he held up for the disobedient
people to look at and be healed. (Numbers 21:8-9) Moses told the disobedient Jews in the
wilderness to look up at the bronze serpent he held on a pole. “Look up and be healed,” he said. “Look up and live.” To this day the symbol of the profession of
medicine is a snake on a pole.
Nicodemus
did not know that Jesus would be crucified, but Jesus knew it. Jesus spoke this eternal truth: “Look up at the Son of Man on the cross and
you will be healed and forgiven. Look up
and find real life.”
Elsewhere
Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it
is for a wealthy man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24) The eye of the needle was a very low gate in
the wall of Jerusalem. In order to get
in, you had to get down and crawl through the low opening. That isn’t easy for
a camel; neither is it easy for human beings, especially rich ones. In order to be born again of the Spirit, we
must be humbled by what Jesus did for us on the cross. The cross must be the
center of our attention.
E.
Stanley Jones, a great theologian, once said, “What gets your attention; gets
you.” If you gaze at money, money will
get you. If you gaze at power, power
will get you. If you gaze at the world’s
values, the world will get you. If you
gaze at God, God will get you.
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