WithoutWax.tv by Pete Wilson | Tag Archive | Christ
Tag Archive - Christ

A Power Within

January 16, 2012 in Spiritual Growth with 25 Comments

I’ve drawn the following picture a couple hundred times to give a visual illustration of one’s need for Christ to bridge the gap from that which separates us from God.

While I think it’ s a pretty accurate description of life before Christ the illustration makes no sense if you’re a Christian and yet, it’s unfortunately how so many Christians are living today. So many are living as if their salvation never happened.

Isn’t it true that you often view your sin as a cavern/barrier to God?

That you think God may love you, but he’s perpetually disappointed in you and desperately wants you to kick it in gear and work on your sin issues?

Listen, if you’re a Christian you now have Christ in you!! It’s not God on one side and you on the other, both of you staring at this gap of sin saying, “Now what are we gonna do?”

The theologically correct picture is you standing in front of your sin, taking full responsibility, but realizing Christ is in you and he has made the provision for the very sin you’ve just committed.

Why is this important?  Because the intention not to sin is not the same as the power not to sin*. God never intended for you to conquer sin on your own.

You have to give up on your power, which is really no power at all, and trust in Christ’s power which is now in you! Your sin is not a barrier to your intimacy with God, but a humbling reminder for your need for what Christ alone can give you.

Do you ever struggle with this concept like I do?

Can You Feed Yourself?

August 4, 2008 in Cross Point Church, God, Leadership, Preaching, Religion with 94 Comments


Okay, okay, if you’re done laughing at the picture, I actually have a serious question for you.

Have you learned to feed yourself? It pains me how often I hear from people who have been Christians for 10, 20, or even 30 years complaining that they “need to be fed”. What? Are you kidding me??

I said this yesterday at Cross Point and I want to say it again here. Early on in your Christian life you need to be fed. You need someone that understands the Bible to help you understand the Bible. You need someone to help you understand what it means to follow Christ.

But at some point you have to get out of the high chair, take off the bib, pick up a fork, and start to feed yourself.

If you’re not growing in your Christian walk you can’t blame your spouse, your schedule, your church, or your pastor. As you mature you have to own this area of your life. You have to want Christ formed in your life enough that you begin to arrange your life around certain practices and methods (ie. Bible study, prayer, worship) that help God’s vision become a reality.

So let’s discuss. Have you learned to feed yourself? What are you doing to feed yourself? What excuses are you using if you’re not growing these days?

Continue The Conversation (SYNC-Part 2)

June 9, 2008 in Church Planting, Cross Point Church, God, Leadership, Preaching, Religion with 54 Comments

Welcome back to Continue The Conversation where we take a snippet of Sunday’s message and create a conversations out of it.

This weekend we continued our new series entitled SYNC. In this series we are talking about spiritual transformation. Yesterday, I talked about the importance of solitude and the dangers of hurry.

I had to confess that my life is often dominated by hurry in such a way that in reduces my chances for Christ to be formed in me. I suffer from a sort of “Hurry Sickness” that I first heard about from John Ortberg.

So how do you know if you suffer from “hurry sickness”?

  • You might suffer from it if your a chronic multi-tasker that tries to drive, text, eat, and put on make-up at the same time.
  • You might suffer from this disease if you tend to make up mock games with your kids like “who can eat breakfast the fastest”, just so you can get out the door.
  • You might suffer from this disease if you can’t sit still for more than five minutes without creating a list of things you need to be doing, so you will feel productive.

Hurry is addictive. It’s so addictive that I often find myself hurrying even when I don’t need to. And the problem might not be what you think it is.

I used to think that I hurry because I have a busy job with a lot of responsibilities. I used to think I was always in a hurry because I have a busy social life and 3 little boys that are constantly on the go.

The truth is, I choose hurry. And I choose it because of what it does to my ego. Hurry makes me feel important. Hurry gets my adrenaline going. Hurry keeps me from having to slow down to see and hear the truth about my inner life.

And the sad reality is until I slow down, Christ will never be truly be formed in me. See you can’t microwave spiritual transformation.

John 15:4-6

How about you? Do you suffer from “hurry sickness”? Is hurry keeping your from “abiding” in Christ?

*A watercooler post.