Sep 14, 2026 5 min read Something to think about?

The Church is Stuck at the Foot of the Cross

Christ didn't stay there — so why have we?

Why seek ye the living among the dead?

There is a sound in many churches today that never moves on. Week after week the singing, the preaching and the praying circle the same ground — the nails, the thorns, the blood, the tears — and then stop dead. Now hear me carefully, because I am not about to say a word against Calvary. The cross is the ground of everything we have. Paul said, For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified [1 Corinthians 2:2 KJV], and if the cross is taken out of our teaching there is no gospel left to preach. But there is a difference between building on the cross and camping at it. The women who came to the tomb that morning came with spices and grief, looking for a body, and the word that met them was a rebuke as much as an announcement: Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen [Luke 24:5-6 KJV]. That question has never stopped being asked of the church. We are looking for a Saviour in the place He left behind. The tomb is empty, the stone is rolled away, the work is finished — and yet whole congregations are still standing at the foot of the cross with their spices in their hands, weeping over a victory that was won two thousand years ago.

The cross is the door, not the house

A church stuck at Calvary is a church that has mistaken the doorway for the whole building. The cross is where you come in; it is not where you live. That is exactly why the Holy Spirit says through the writer to the Hebrews, Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection [Hebrews 6:1 KJV] — and then lists what those principles are: repentance, faith, baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection, judgement. Foundations. Nobody sensible pulls up the foundation of a house, but nobody sensible spends thirty years laying it either. You lay it once and you build. Jesus Himself did not remain at the cross. He died, He was buried, He rose, He ascended, and this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God [Hebrews 10:12 KJV]. He sat down. The work was done. If the Head has moved on to the throne, what is the body doing still kneeling at the hill? A church that only ever preaches the death of Christ will produce believers who know they are forgiven but have no idea they are seated, sent, filled, and equipped. They are saved and stranded.

What the empty tomb put in your hands

Look at what we lose when the teaching stops at Golgotha. We lose the resurrection life: Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life [Romans 6:4 KJV]. That is a walk, not a memory. We lose our position: If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God [Colossians 3:1 KJV], and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus [Ephesians 2:6 KJV]. We lose the power Paul was still pressing after at the end of his life — That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection [Philippians 3:10 KJV] — and we lose the daily reckoning that makes holiness possible: Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord [Romans 6:11 KJV]. Paul put it in one breath: I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me [Galatians 2:20 KJV]. Notice both halves. Crucified — nevertheless I live. A church that stops at the first half of that verse will be forever sorry for sin and never victorious over it. And Paul is blunt about the cost of a cross without a resurrection: And if Christ be not risen, then is your faith vain [1 Corinthians 15:17 KJV].

Milk, meat, and a church that never grows up

This is why so many believers are tired. It is not that they lack sincerity; they lack food. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat [Hebrews 5:12 KJV]. Milk is right for a newborn and starvation for a grown man. God's answer to a stuck church is not more emotion but more Word, given by men who will feed it — For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ [Ephesians 4:12 KJV] — until we come unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ [Ephesians 4:13 KJV]. All Scripture is given that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works [2 Timothy 3:17 KJV]. Furnished. Loaded up. Sent out. That is the intent of God for you: not a lifetime spent staring backwards at your own unworthiness, but a life spent going forward in His sufficiency, that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work [Colossians 1:10 KJV].

👣 Come away from the hill

So here is the honest question. Is your Christian life still parked at the moment you got saved? Do you know more about your sin than your Saviour's victory? Then come away from the hill. Not away from the cross — you never leave what you are built on — but away from standing still. Thank God for the blood, then get up and live like the tomb is empty, because it is. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only [James 1:22 KJV].

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This week's step of obedience: read Romans 6 slowly, once a day, and each morning say out loud what verse 11 says of you — dead indeed unto sin, alive unto God. Then go and do one thing you have been putting off out of guilt, and do it as a risen man or woman in Christ, not as a beggar at the foot of a hill...

Key Takeaways:

The cross is the foundation of the faith, not the whole building — [Hebrews 6:1 KJV]
Christ finished the work and sat down; the church must move on with the Head — [Hebrews 10:12 KJV]
Resurrection life is a daily walk, not a memory — [Romans 6:4 KJV]
Believers are risen and seated with Christ, and should live from that place — [Colossians 3:1 KJV], [Ephesians 2:6 KJV]
A cross without a resurrection leaves faith empty — [1 Corinthians 15:17 KJV]
Stuck believers need strong meat, not more milk — [Hebrews 5:12 KJV]
The Word furnishes us for good works, so obedience is the goal — [2 Timothy 3:17 KJV], [James 1:22 KJV]