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"When man is God/ and love is sin/ and life is death/ and lose is win/ I give in."
I wrote these words to a song when I was 17 and have sung it since to thousands of people, young and old, black and white, rich and poor, powerful and meek. Many have responded with understanding for the first time. One lady, who had been going to church for 60 years, said to me "I never really understood before that you can't understand the cross. You just have to accept it. Today I've accepted it."

The cross reaches out with its arms to all four points of the compass, and draws you to it, to this Crossroad where people come together, not where they diverge. No-one is better than anyone else before the cross, and no-one is less. No one is more religious or less, more worthy or less, more impressive or more needy. If you stand before the cross without awe, you have not seen the cross.
The cross, like the electric chair, is an instrument of death but it has been transformed into a fountain of life. It tells a story of bitter pain which yet heals. It is ultimately a mystery too profound to be expressed in mere words, but which the simplest child can perceive quite easily. It where all our contradictions are answered, where we are given, by sheer grace, integrity. It is love.

Learn more about this author, Matt Carmichael.
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