My Cross Because of His

There are two traps that Christians fall into. I've fallen into both. One is to view pleasing God as a list of do's and don't's. The other is to believe that once you're a new creature in Christ and old things have passed away, you can just focus on the cross without being concerned about what God's Word says to do.
Christ raises the bar. He targets hatred, not merely murder, and lust, not just the act of adultery. God looks at the heart. Obviously a list of external actions isn't going to satisfy Him. We cannot please Him, cannot be righteous in ourselves.
God provided Christ's righteousness for us. As believers, we are new. We are now capable of doing what God wants through the work of the Spirit in us. But we are still ignorant and we still struggle with a sin nature. We need to know what God wants of us and we need to be rebuked for our sin. Scripture teaches, rebukes, corrects, trains in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16). Christ's work on the cross and God's greatness should motivate us to know what God wants from us and to do it. And God wants both internal and external change in us. Scripture doesn't just say "focus on the cross" but "take up your cross."