Part IV


The Work of the Cross: “Whatsoever You Shall Ask in My Name, That Will I Do” 

As we consider the work of the cross, we inevitably run up against the myriad promises of God—blanket promises enjoining us to believe for everything and anything with assurance that it will be done. How do we reconcile these promises with the work of the cross? 

We have established that the Lord crucifies our sense of what is important, good, desirable and worthy of our becoming. If so, if all things are—as we have said—not important, how is it He enjoins us to believe Him for that which He Himself does not believe in? For all that we can ever ask is based on our sense of what is important, what matters to us, what is therefore worth asking for.

How can He promise to fulfil that which we ask for seeing that all we ask is based on that which He does not identify with and wishes to destroy? Moreover, the testimony of countless saints throughout the centuries bears witness that anyone rarely receives what he asked for from God the way he asked for it, or i.e., the way he first expected to receive it and first desired it.

We seem forced to conclude that, from the perspective of original desire and expectation, God is either a liar or else whatever the secret is to obtaining such promises is so elusive and rarely found that it just isn’t worth the pain and trouble to believe Him for anything. How then do we reconcile the work of the cross with the promises?

First, we have to recognize that God does not work at odds with Himself. It is not so that the work of the cross which destroys our sense of importance is of one realm while the promises we read and respond to in terms of our sense of importance are of another. No, the two must be in harmony (otherwise they are not from the same god.)

Furthermore, we have already established that the work of the cross is central to all. That work is God’s ultimate purpose. If so, then God’s promises must be designed to serve that purpose, not compete with it.

And such is the case. God’s promises have a purpose. They serve the work of the cross. This is something few of us comprehend. Because of our failure to comprehend, we either ignore them or else misapply them toward the reinforcement of that from which we are to be delivered. In truth though, the promises are vital to the service of the work of the cross.

The purpose of the promises is to evoke from us the manifestation of our sense of importance. It highlights them, stimulates them, brings them to life, expression and exposure. The promises are to our sense of importance what the law is to our sense of morality. As the law evokes our striving nature, so the promises evoke our desiring and expectational nature. That is their purpose.

By exposure, the Lord may destroy our sense of importance, including the power of expectation. The work of the cross is activated.

But what of the promises then? Are they liars? No, ‘tis not true, though first it seems.

What we must understand is that the promises to our desiring nature and our desiring nature which receives the promises are of two different worlds. The heavenly nature of the promises speaks to a fulfilment beyond what our desiring nature is able to anticipate or desire or expect. Our desiring nature can only present us an image of what the promises have to offer in fulfilment.

All fulfilment from God is unknown to us at the beginning. Yet jot for jot and tittle for tittle the fulfilments are true to the original image when they appear. But the process by which they finally appear involves the slow, painful death of the original images by which we first desired and anticipated them.

This is the work of the cross, the work for which the promises are given—not merely the fulfilment of our original senses of importance and desire, but the transformation of our sense themselves to receive the realities which our first nature can only mirror to us in the beginning.

For in all things the true work of the cross is always one step ahead of whatever we speak, we think or we deal with at any time. In all that we deal with, therefore, let us allow the work of the cross to be central.