Living the Cross Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing Hardcover – January 19, 2006

To begin, I should say I have a very low tolerance for "touchy feely" books on living the Christian life. We live in a world that has pushed theology and doctrine into the realm of the specialists, leaving feelings alone as a measure of the Christian life for the common man. I'm not certain our culture is unique in this regard; the Puritans' deep desire for an emotional connection with God could have been ripped out of the modern Christian book store.C.J. Mahoney, however, surprised me with this short book. While he doesn't dive deeply into theology, he does center on theology and thinking, rather than emotion. In fact, Dr. Mahoney is insistent that our constant reliance on our emotions is damaging our spiritual growth --something of a fresh wind in our Christian culture. What's more, the doctrine he does deliver is dead center, respecting the Scriptures in the fullest sense of the concept.He begins by explaining why the Cross should be the center of our lives, or rather why Christians can never really leave the Cross behind. He then focuses on the difference between feeling and thinking, or rather what you feel verses what is real. Faith is, after all, living your life in light of that which you know to be true even though current circumstances don't seem to support that truth.The next chapter slips somewhat, drawing a picture of God's love for people. Here he makes the classic mistake of inserting a quantitative statement in the words of Christ in John 3:16, rather than a qualitative one. This is a mistake taken up by the large majority of the commentaries in the world, however, so it's hard to fault the author for it. After this, he draws his reader into the divine dilemma --how can a perfectly just God save a people justly condemned to eternal death?Dr. Mahoney works through the final week of the life of Christ, placing each of us into the scenes we find there. We are each condemning Christ, calling for his death. In the face of all this, the author turns again to the love of God, and how he not only covered our sins, but also understands our suffering in a sinful world.In the two chapters, the author moves into practical application. These are the most valuable chapters in the book, explaining precisely what legalism is (trying to please God through our own will and actions), and how to unload condemnation. Here is a picture of the spirit filled life almost anyone, of any theological persuasion, can embrace and use to their advantage.Well worth reading.

In his book, Living the Cross Centered Life, C.J. Mahaney reminds us the words of Paul that the cross is the only essential tenet of our faith (1 Corinthians 15.1,3). And he suggests that we face constant temptation to move away from that essential in three common areas: subjectivism, legalism, and condemnation. (p. 16). Mahaney writes:"The message Paul had for Timothy is the same message God has for you. You need to rediscover the truth. They key to joy, to growth, to passion isn't hiding from you. It's right before your eyes.It's the gospel." (p. 30)Through the rest of this little book Mahaney does his best to help us come face-to-face with the purity of the Gospel and to fall in love with the reality of the grace of the Gospel."For when you're deeply aware of your sin, and of what an affront it is to God's holiness, and of how impossible it is for him to respond to this sin with anything other that furious wrath - you can only be overwhelmed with how amazing grace is.Only those who are truly aware of their sin can truly cherish grace." (p. 88).In those two sentences Mahaney seems to identify the great challenge of our age: the absence of sin. As a concept, sin has been identified as a leftover from the dark ages that no longer applies to contemporary life. Perhaps a few quaint religious types still believe in sin but not the more intelligent masses. Mahaney is correct then that one will not love the gospel (or "cherish grace") apart from an awareness of their sin.The intellectually honest seeker of God will consider the entire gospel narrative that begins with creation, then the fall, followed by God's relentless pursuit of mankind to reconcile and restore them to himself in that relationship that existed in creation! In that context the harsh reality of the cross where "Jesus does't just feel forsaken; he is forsaken" (p. 94) challenges the assertion that sin is just a quaint, outdated concept. Jesus didn't go to the cross because of a concept.I appreciate Mahaney's challenge on p. 109: "Let the cross always be the treasure of your heart, your best and highest thought...and your passionate preoccupation."Living the Cross Centered Life is a volume that should be part of your library and should be re-read annually.