I Wear This Gold Chain With A Cross
The phrase "became Christian" doesn't sound quite right, because in my limited understanding, what actually happens is a switch deep within you flips; you realize you'd been fundamentally wrong, callous, and obnoxious all those years; you rewind your memory playback mechanism to all the times circumstances had lined up for you that seemed like unbelievably fortuitous coincidences at the time (those coincidences were not believable, because they were not coincidences); you thank your newfound Saviour from the bottom of your heart for loving you and being patient with you and saving you.
When that switch flipped in me, I bought a gold chain with a cross. I got it partly because I indulged and partly because I wanted a tangible reminder with me all the time of that special moment of realization and salvation.
But I also thought the heavy cross on my chest would keep me in line. I was wrong. Maybe it did, mostly. But if I really wanted to sin, I would ignore it, which is completely shameful and not what I got it for.
I thought it would make me behave differently. It did, sometimes. It helps to see it on a Zoom and remember to be a good witness. But I wear it in my shirt sometimes and wear it out sometimes and it doesn't help that much when you're not on a video call and can't see it on your chest.
I got habituated to it, but that's not the problem. I was wrong in how I behaved, but I was even more wrong in believing in my behaviour.
What I do has nothing to do with the most important truth: that I am saved.
I cannot lose my salvation because I didn't earn it, and I can't earn it. I don't see the cross as a mechanism to make me behave differently--the metallic equivalent of a motivational poster. It is the golden expression of ultimate love that the designer and engineer of the universe feels for me; the symbol of the greatest gift and deepest sacrifice by the holiest person; the reminder that I don't have to behave differently because I wear the cross and would look bad if I didn't, but that I do think, feel, and behave better because I am loved by the Creator and He works through me.
If God is for us, who can be against us? Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things?
Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
Who is the one who will condemn? Christ is the one who died (and more than that, he was raised), who is at the right hand of God, and who also is interceding for us.
Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
Written without AI, and you can probably tell, because there are mistakes