Imagine this;
you are standing in front of a wooden cross just like one that Jesus was
crucified on. It is awfully rough, hard and unpleasant. Its vulgar silhouette
cuts an image of pain, torture and death against the soft, comforting sky. Then
you hear a voice from the heaven say, “Lick it, go ahead lick the cross.” You
think, “That’s disgusting.” But you hear the voice say the same thing again. So
you do it; you lick the cross. Then you find that your tongue has been nailed
to the cross. It is being crucified and is relentless as it twists and slithers
until it dies. You notice that this is the same cross that Jesus Christ is on
and you can taste His blood. He is dying for you, but you realise that you are
being crucified with Him, even your tongue.
Although your tongue is a little part of your body, it
boasts great things. In effect, it’s a raging bush fire. It has been set on
fire by hell itself, it is full of sinfulness that has polluted your life. It
is untameable; a restless, snaking, slithering evil. It’s full of deadly
poison, which can bless God, yet curse others (Jas 3:5-9). Therefore, it needed
to be crucified, or put to death. The reason for this is that,
Paul has said that,
“My old self
has been crucified with Christ (the tongue included). It is no longer I who
live, but Christ lives in me. So, I live in this earthly body by trusting in
the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal 2:20 NLT).
So, when we
made our peace with God, we were crucified with Christ (our tongue included).
We need the reality of this truth to sink in and shape our thinking, thereby
affecting our life. However, we also need to trust in the Son of God while we live in our earthly body. The reason is that
the tongue will continually try to rise from the dead and speak the old
language of the snake and the old self. When it does this, remember that you
have licked the cross.
[1] McGee, J. Vernon. Living By Faith:
Practical Lessons from the Epistle of James. (Nashville
TN: Nelson, 2004), 86.
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