The struggle of Christianity...

When I consider the cross and the effect the Lord Jesus has had on my life, I often find myself getting lost in my fight, but what I had come to notice is that a man like Charles Surgeon’s, although at times may have fixated on his life and his struggle, the substance of his diary entries did not have that focus but clearly shifted to the Word of God and Christ’s tussles. It was positioned on Christ’s brawl as the pinnacle of all things and not his own moves to appease His God. This is where the power of salvation rests. We often feel forsaken and then forget to reflect on what Christ actual endured. It ends on being about us and not Him. Let us seek out God’s grace to rectify our wrongs. Our struggle is but a pinch on what Christ actually endured. When we are freed from inward focus we become far more effective.   

Observe…

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

- Psalm 22:1

“We here behold the Saviour in the depth of his sorrows. No other place so well shows the griefs of Christ as Calvary, and no other moment at Calvary is so full of agony as that in which his cry rends the air-”My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” At this moment physical weakness was united with acute mental torture from the shame and ignominy through which he had to pass; and to make his grief culminate with emphasis, he suffered spiritual agony surpassing all expression, resulting from the departure of his Father’s presence. This was the black midnight of his horror; then it was that he descended the abyss of suffering. No man can enter into the full meaning of these words. Some of us think at times that we could cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” There are seasons when the brightness of our Father’s smile is eclipsed by clouds and darkness; but let us remember that God never does really forsake us. It is only a seeming forsaking with us, but in Christ’s case it was a real forsaking. We grieve at a little withdrawal of our Father’s love; but the real turning away of God’s face from his Son, who shall calculate how deep the agony which it caused him?

In our case, our cry is often dictated by unbelief: in his case, it was the utterance of a dreadful fact, for God had really turned away from him for a season. O thou poor, distressed soul, who once lived in the sunshine of God’s face, but art now in darkness, remember that he has not really forsaken thee. God in the clouds is as much our God as when he shines forth in all the lustre of his grace; but since even the thought that he has forsaken us gives us agony, what must the woe of the Saviour have been when he exclaimed, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”” (Charles Spurgeon)

Signing off

Tyrone