"They told you that the primary purpose of the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross was to save you"

They told you that the primary purpose of the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross was to save you...was it? I propose to you to start by tracing back the story of the cross from the very beginning: There..., in the paradise, God prepared for Adam and Eve what you may call "heaven on earth" and God was like a friend to them, "the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, where are you? (Genesis 3:9). God provided them with everything they need to make their lives wonderful, but Satan came and made another offer to them saying: what you have is not the best and you have been denied the "big prize", don't you know that when you eat from that tree you will become like God! So, what happened after that? Adam and Eve let down God and chose to reject their loving creator, thus insulting and hurting God's feelings by accepting his enemy's offer and rejecting God clear loving instruction to them. This was an insult to God and a victory for Satan. However, God being the faithful, for "He cannot deny Himself", (2 Timothy 2:13), the one "whom there is no variation or shadow of shifting", (James 1:17) and the righteous judge, (Psalm 7:11), God, therefore, did not deny the Satan his victory, moreover, in John 14:30, we see the Lord acknowledging that Satan is the prince of this world. Yet, God had a brilliant plan to defeat this enemy and regain his lost dear creature. From this back-drop, you can realize a threefold blow taking place: - A major insult was directed to God who is also the highest authority in the universe (can you imagine?). - Adam and Eve were lost and were evicted from the paradise. - Satan, justly, became the prince of the human's world having his way with people, deceiving, torturing, destroying and also mocking them in front of God's thrown, ( Job 1:9-10). To fix this problem according to God's wisdom, the primary and the No.1 priority in the plan was to first restore God's glory after this major insult that resulted also in a victory for Satan. Romans 15:3, tells us about the insult, "For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: "The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. Then, in John 12, 27-28 we read about the primary purpose of Lord Christ first visit to earth, "It was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28. Father, glorify your name, then a voice came from heaven, I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.", and from John 17:1-4, "1. After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent". You can see here that Glorifying God came first before giving eternal life to those who will believe, and the meaning of eternal life (verse 3) is that they know you, the only true God. Also in Luke 2:14, in the angels" song, we hear: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men". Again, here, you can see that giving glory to God comes first before announcing the blessing that humanity can receive. Verse 5 reminds us of God eternal glory, that glory which was once temporarily tarnished when the Satan won the battle of the garden, (verse 5: "And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began"). The third main purpose of the Lord Christ"s mission is mentioned in verse 4 in the same chapter (John 17), "4. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do". This work involved setting an example in dealing with parents, friends, religious establishment, authorities, all kinds of people, rich, poor, weak, sick, marginalized, etc. What are the benefits of preaching and putting God first and making him the center of our lives and our worships? In the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13, we read, "this, then, is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name", hallowed means honor and holy, this also means that our relationship with God is marked first by glorifying his name. To give glory to God means to always put him first and center, (John 3:30: He must become greater; I must become less). When we acknowledge and glorify God before anyone else, all aspects of our lives take a proper alignment with God and all the blessing and benefits in the Lord's prayer start flowing our way, God also said: "I will honor those who honor Me, (1 Samuel 2:30). Honor here also means to be kind and generous toward someone. The sad reality is that the Lord Christ has been pushed away from being in the center in many churches replaced by the pastor or the priest who became the center of attention. The talk and the discussions after Sunday morning sermon and what they claim to be a worship of Christ is mainly about how good and eloquent was the pastor (or the speaker) this morning, not how good was the speaker in bringing me closer to Christ or making him the center of my life and glorifying his name. The clever subtle duplicity practiced by false preachers. A- By pushing the Lord Christ aside and making the pastor (preacher or speaker) the center of attention, the goal is to condition you to become reliant on this person in receiving the word of God. Many have gone one step further, claiming that they have a word from God for you, or a miracle has to do with your health or finance (predicating, of course, upon sending them money), in addition to all the other gimmicks that you can watch played out on TV broadcasts fitting the Biblical description in Jude 1:16, "" walking according to their desires; their mouths utter arrogant words, flattering people for their own advantage". B- By making you the whole focus and the center of God's plan of salvation (not the glorification of God first), their devious plan is to show you how important you are and how much they care about you. Their messages about how much God cares sometimes sound like God is so disparate to have you join his side and will do anything to make that happen (I used this expression just to illustrate the point with my ultimate respect to God). This watering down and distortion of the message of the gospel, in addition to making people believe that spending one hour in the Church on Sunday is all that God requires from them has led many to underestimate sin, having a little desire to change their old ways. C- Lord Christ, being capable of achieving a multipurpose goal has glorified the father and defeated the enemy, completed the work of salvation and reconciliation on the cross, and left an example to be followed. The preachers who focus only on one aspect of the Lord Christ's accomplishments (the redemption aspect), are denying people a wholesome teaching providing one-legged base upon which they rest their faith and conduct their lives. Obviously, the journey with God will become very shaky (one-legged base), since Lord Christ is no longer the center and there is little reading of the Bible to understand his example, the result is a weak person, facing many disappointments in life and constantly dependent on those preachers for help. The crux of the whole plot is this: "They are after you, not for you". The question we need to ask ourselves is: Does listening to that group of preachers make me understand clearly the multipurpose mission accomplished by the Lord Christ when he visited our earth and grasp the importance of putting God first making him the center of my life? Do they encourage me to study the Bible to understand the example of Jesus Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit in my life, or their tone and the innuendo is all about keeping me coming back, so they can continue to spoon-feed me with what they want me to believe and get me to continue supporting the organization?