The Cross Without the Power

The Cross Without the Power
Producing Either Self Centered Believers or Joyless Ones

Many talk about the cross.
Few walk in the power of the resurrection.

Christ was resurrected and is now seated in heavenly places.
The same event that emptied the tomb has opened the way for abundant life — but only for those who are crucified and risen with Him.

Most stop short.

The Sequence We Cannot Skip

Betrayal. Crucifixion. Death. Resurrection. Power.

This is the only sequence that produces the real thing.
Jesus said it without apology: “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

Skip the dying and you remain barren.
Talk about the cross without embracing it and you remain powerless.

Where are you in that sequence?

Selfish Centered or Perhaps Joyless — The Cost of an Incomplete Gospel

Refuse the cross and you produce a fleshly confidence — people who think far too highly of themselves. They use the liberty of Christ to protect their comfort, advance their reputation, and pursue their own ambitions while still singing His songs. They are enemies of the cross while claiming to be its friends.

Miss the power of the resurrection and you produce a false humility.
These ones speak constantly of dying, suffering, and the crucified life. They appear deep and spiritual. Yet the joy is absent. The passion is gone. The abundant life Jesus promised never appears. What looks like humility is often only the refusal to rise.

One group is proud and calls it freedom.
The other is joyless and calls it spirituality.
Both are incomplete. Both are common. Both miss the fullness of Christ.

Still Longing After All These Years

Paul was no novice when he wrote these words.
Decades of ministry, suffering, and revelation were already behind him. Yet late in life he was still crying out:“

I want to know Christ
and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead.
I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death,
so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!”
This is the lifelong hunger of every true disciple. Anything less is missing the mark.

Knowing Christ means both — the fellowship of His sufferings and the power of His resurrection. The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead now dwells in the believer and is able to quicken mortal bodies with real life, real joy, and real victory. Present tense. Available now.

As Stephen Charnock observed, “Christ’s sufferings were necessary to redeem us.
His resurrection and glory are necessary to bless us.
The cross acquires our redemption; the resurrection applies it.
Embrace both the cross and the resurrection, and you are brought into His fullness.”

What No Other Religion Can Offer

This is what sets the followers of Jesus apart from every other religion on earth.
We do not follow a dead Master.
We are joined to a living Lord.

As we are crucified with Him, we also partake of the power that raised Him. That power is not theory. It is meant to be lived.

What Lancaster County Actually Needs

Lancaster County does not need better structured organizations.
It does not need more programs.
It needs men and women who will actually die — and then live in the power of the resurrection.

Anything less will give us activity without genuine revival, form without power, and words without weight.

The early church knew this reality: filled with the Holy Ghost, speaking the word with boldness, and with great power giving witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Great grace was upon them all.

The world is still waiting for that kind of church — clothed with power from on high and overflowing with the joy of resurrection life. Nothing else will convince them that Jesus is who the Word says He is.

The Path That Remains

The sequence has not changed.
Take up the cross.
Die.
Then — and only then — walk in the power of His resurrection.

The tomb is empty.
The power is available.

The only question left is whether we will take the full path, or continue settling for a version of Christianity that never fully tastes the life He died and rose to give.

Aaron Beiler