2026: Returning to the Cross, a Call to Stay Meek in Love

by Mark Goering, Nathan Elliott, and Dave Miller

Over the past season, we, Mark, Nathan and Dave, have become deeply aware of how much intentionality it takes to remain meek in love as the years go by. We are at a stage of life where we are watching marriages, families, and friendships around us strain under the accumulated weight of disappointment, misunderstanding, unhealed wounds, and unchecked selfishness. It is not that people suddenly become cruel; it is that unresolved pain and indulged selfish desires quietly hardens into distance. Because of this, we are choosing, again and again, to keep short accounts with one another and with those around us, asking the Lord to preserve tenderness in our hearts. Finishing well, we are learning, is not automatic. It is something that must be continually received and intentionally practiced as grace.

What we are witnessing is not a failure of belief so much as a failure of abiding. Many people have a sincere theology of forgiveness, but theology by itself does not produce forgiving hearts. Jesus spoke directly to this tension when He said in John 5:39 that the Scriptures bear witness about Him, yet they do not themselves give life. The purpose of Scripture is not simply to inform us about God but to draw us into communion with Him. Forgiveness, faithfulness, and love are not the fruit of information; they are the fruit of encounter. When people drift from living fellowship with Christ, even strong convictions slowly lose their power to sustain real relationships.

Over the past months, the Lord has been drawing us back again and again to the heart of the gospel and to the meaning of the atonement. Right before Christmas, I, Mark, woke from a dream in which I was preaching the simple gospel, and I sensed the Lord’s invitation to linger there. It has become clear that the cross is not something we graduate from; it is something we live within. The Christian life contains far more self-giving, far more dying to self, and far more dependence on grace than most of us imagined in our younger years. The cross is not merely how we entered the faith; it is how we remain alive in it.

This is why the presence or absence of spiritual vitality so often shows up in relationships. When we are aware of our own ongoing need for mercy, we find it natural to extend mercy. When we are living in active dependence on the Lord, grace flows through us toward others. But when I begin to operate as if I no longer need to be carried, my heart subtly begins to close. What keeps love alive over time is not emotional intensity or moral resolve but a continual posture of receiving from Christ what we cannot generate on our own.

Dallas Willard captured this beautifully when he described grace as God acting in our lives to enable us to do what we cannot do by ourselves. Grace is not merely God rescuing us when we fail; it is God actively empowering us to live in ways that exceed our natural capacity. Even in a perfected world, grace would still be the energy of obedience and love. Regeneration gives us our first deep experience of this divine life, but the invitation is to continue drawing from it every day. Grace is meant to be spent generously and then replenished, not preserved cautiously.

In light of this, commitment takes on a different meaning. True commitment is not primarily an act of willpower; it is the result of faith that has chosen where to place its weight. Faith gives substance to what we hope for and makes unseen realities trustworthy enough to build a life upon. When Christ becomes the settled center of our trust, other commitments—marriage, family, calling, community, ministry—can rest securely upon Him. When we remain divided in our trust, always keeping alternative allegiances emotionally available, our commitments become fragile. But when our first and deepest loyalty is given to Christ, we are freed to love others with endurance and steadiness.

This is why Jesus placed the cross at the beginning of discipleship. To take up the cross is to lay down the right to self-protection and self-preservation, not in despair but in trust. It is to believe that life truly comes through surrender to Him. Every lasting commitment is rooted here. The cross teaches us how to remain present when love is costly, how to stay when withdrawal feels easier, and how to keep giving when the return is not immediate.

Our prayer for ourselves, for our marriages, and for the communities we are building through CFC is that we would be a people who continually return to this place of dependence. Not driven by fear or comparison, but drawn by the quiet, sustaining power of grace. As we keep coming back to Jesus and to the cross, we discover that love does not have to grow cold with time. It can, by His enabling, grow deeper, steadier, and more resilient, carrying us all the way to the end.