“So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. Through him you Gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit.”
Ephesians 2:19-22 NLT
The resolution and reconciliation of the cross is a relational one. At the fall of Eden, humans were irreparably disconnected from each other. The fig leaves they sewed together were not merely to hide their relationship with God the Father but from each other. In Christ, this identity is put to death at the cross. It is instead replaced by a new identity. This identity is founded in the person of Jesus. Many Christians refuse to adopt this new identity, instead of believing Jesus to be a kind of “passive passenger,” in their decision-making process and choices. Pragmatically, accepting Christ is to give up oneself. But in doing so, we gain all that have accepted him as well as all the inheritance afforded to him by his Father. Truthfully, to be in a relationship with Christ is to completely deconstruct ourselves. It is to use him as the cornerstone for all other relationships and ideas. Many believers simply will not undertake this path and therefore will never take hold of the types of relationships that God intends for them, despite the fact that they claim to believe in Jesus. As James points out, we must not be merely hearers of the word but doers. Christianity is not merely a mental assent to the facts of Jesus, it is a willing and active submission to them. This is the only firm foundation upon which all other blessings in relationships will be sustainable for blessings and cultivation.
JOSH McGARY. COM 