Resigned To Jesus Christ and Him Crucified

For I didn't think it was a good idea to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

-1 Corinthians 2:2

When we interface with other people, we have to be careful to not get away from Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  This applies in friendships, families and with people we meet in the marketplace.

When we gather for a small or large meet up, forgetting Jesus Christ and his crucifixion is the greatest mistake.  I imagine that this is why many churches believe in taking communion or the Eucharist at each formal meeting.

But that is not what Paul is saying nor is it the application.  The word here is saying that I am not going to get in the way of Jesus Christ and His crucifixion and I am not going to be a part of you steering us, away from Jesus Christ and His crucifixion; when we meet.

Part of the message of 1 Corinthians is that we do celebrate Christ and find Him in the midst of our fellowship, as we eat together; in the same way as Jesus was found, seen, heard and felt when He ate and drank with His first disciples.  We redirect our thoughts, hearts and awareness towards Jesus Christ and Him crucified, when we raise a cup and lift a loaf, together and speak words of thanks to God, together.

When we interface with people in combos or larger groups, we can be intentional to focus our hearts on Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  If we are not, we may focus of other things other than Jesus Christ.  This seems like stating the obvious, but I believe that the reason we have a word like this is that we are so easily distracted and so easily taken off center.

This is number one, a word for me and you.  It is secondly a word for others.  Many people are so distracted or immature, broken or in bondage; that they can not hear this advice.  You and I must do it and have this in our hearts and minds, and then be a corralling force.

The way of bringing Jesus Christ and Him crucified to a relationship between me and another or others, is for me to be crucified with Christ.  This is the message and the means.  That means big Jesus and little me.

If I am crucified with Christ, I am completely resigned to Him.  My strengths that I was born with, my talents, my abilities are all nothing, if I am crucified with Christ.  This means that I am completely at the service of God and others.

This means that people can take advantage of me and even bore me to death, so to speak.  The good news is that people who are crucified with Christ get to be resurrected with Christ, now.  The resurrection life of Christ is going to look, sound and feel like Christ.

The only way for me to be like Christ is to be crucified with Him and then be utterly dependent on Him for His life in me.

The paradox is that people need Christ, but they want to avoid being crucified with Him.  Wisdom and spirituality and every talent or ability that can be received and enjoyed from God; is wonderful.  But the life of Christ does not work, flow or can not be received without the crucifixion of Christ.

He came, He lived, He died, He rose from the dead and He ascended.  Even before Jesus died, he told his first followers that they can only follow him, if they took up or embraced their own crucified lives.

For Christians, in life, when we interface with other people, we have to be careful to not get away from Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  This applies in friendships, families and with people we meet in the marketplace.

Whatever the issue is that others have or bring, I want to be resigned to Jesus, when I am among them.  And what I want to do is to be in His life.  And I want to invite others who have not partaken of Christ to know Him.  I want to be a person who is resigned to Jesus Christ and Him crucified.