I Have the Cross
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. – 1 Corinthians 1:18 (NIV)
I don’t think that I can really understand how foolish the Cross is until I see myself living in a season in which I have nothing from this world to lean on.
It’s Easter Week and maybe the celebration dinner will be chicken noodle soup because its on sale 10 for $10. Maybe there won’t be anyone joining in that celebration dinner. It will be quiet. Maybe there is sickness in the physical body. Maybe there’s sickness in a relationship. Maybe you even think the sickness is life-threatening. What or who is there? There is the Cross.
Was there ever anyone who was more beaten down and left with nothing and no one to lift Him up than Jesus? “My God! My God! Why have You left me too?!!!” Jesus cried from the Cross. He was nailed down to the Cross. Naked. Alone. He had nothing!
Jesus did this so that when I am nailed down and look around and think I have nothing – the Cross is there. Symbol of unspeakable horror. A living message of VICTORY and TRIUMPHANT.
“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33 (NLT)
“O righteous Father, the world doesn’t know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.” – John 17:25-26 (NLT)
In looking around at a world gone totally mad, look at the Cross. Foolishness to the world? Yes. But it is LIFE and PROMISED HOPE to those of us who are PERISHING!!! Let us keep the Cross before us, my friends, not in our rearview mirror! Let us never forget that it was on that wooden instrument of Roman horror that Jesus chose to lay down and be the Lamb, God’s Lamb, that took away the sins, all the sins of this world, and cover them with every drop of His Blood.
If God is for us, who can be against us? The one who did not spare his own Son, but offered him as a sacrifice for all of us, surely will give us all things, along with his Son, won’t he? Who will accuse God’s elect? It is God who justifies! Who is the one to condemn? It is the Messiah Jesus who is interceding on our behalf. He died, and more importantly, has been raised and is seated at the right hand of God.
Who will separate us from the Messiah’s love? Can trouble, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, or a violent death[x]do this? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being put to death all day long.
We are thought of as sheep headed for slaughter.”
In all these things we are triumphantly victorious due to the one who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor anything above, nor anything below, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is ours in union with the Messiah ]Jesus, our Lord. – Romans 8:32-39 (ISV)
Whether I celebrate this week with chicken noodle soup by myself or with roasted chicken and ham and 20 family members and friends, the Cross – the empty Tomb – testify to the Truth of my life. I am a blood-bought, child of the King! Yes, the King, not just any king. My life is abundant because of my Savior, my Messiah and the Cross. He is not dead. He is ALIVE and with me!