“The cross is why Jesus came to the earth.” While that sounded right when I got up to preach after spending hours in scripture, the deeper thought is that Jesus came to redeem His people. He came to tell them that “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and be baptized.” (Matthew 6.) He came for the life change that will happen in our lives. The cross is the what. Peace in this life and into eternity is the why. John 10:10 says that Christ came so that we can have life to it’s fullest. That fullest is defined in Galatians 5 as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control.
When a person gets up everyday, studies Christ and His life, and works to develop a plan to influence those around me with his life, it happens that you forget the big picture of why you got into ministry. Especially amidst the focus of daily ministry tasks. I have held various full time ministry positions since September of 1998. I felt the call into full time ministry already in 1994. It has been a great journey. During that journey, I have had ebs and flows to what I have been doing to call myself a student minister.
The cross is the what. It is what Jesus did in order for us to have the peace through life with Christ (why). I think we often get these confused. We need to remember our why so that the what has more influence. Michael Jr. does a tremendous job of helping explain this better than I can. Check out this video:
