Christianity Is a Cross-Shaped Faith

Today’s a new day!

One of the most beautiful truths about Christianity is that it is a cross-shaped faith.

The Cross reminds us that our faith is never meant to stop with us.

First, there is the vertical relationship—our relationship with God. Through Jesus Christ, the barrier of sin was broken, forgiveness was made available, and we were invited into a restored relationship with our Heavenly Father. Everything begins there. We cannot truly love others until we have first experienced the transforming love of God.

But the Cross doesn’t end with the vertical beam.

There is also the horizontal relationship—our relationship with the people God brings into our lives. Family. Friends. Neighbors. Coworkers. The stranger across the street. The person who thinks differently than we do. Even the one who has hurt us.

Jesus made it clear that loving God and loving people are inseparable.

When our relationship with God is healthy, it changes the way we see everyone else. We become quicker to forgive, slower to judge, more willing to serve, more eager to encourage, and more compassionate toward those who are hurting.

The vertical relationship gives life to the horizontal relationship.

The Cross calls us to worship God with all our hearts while extending His grace, mercy, and love to others. We cannot claim to love the One we cannot see while refusing to love the people we can.

The world doesn’t simply need more people who attend church. It needs more followers of Jesus whose lives reflect the shape of the Cross—people deeply rooted in God’s love and constantly reaching outward with that same love.

May our lives always point upward in worship and outward in love.

Because Christianity has always been, and will always be, a cross-shaped faith. ~OC