My thoughts this Easter focus on The Cross, and what it means to me!
Today I just thought… what does the Cross mean to me? Why should the Cross that Jesus died on be so important to me as a Christian? What if Jesus had not died on the Cross? Here are a couple of thoughts I had on this subject.
- Without the Cross, I would not have fellowship with God.
The verse below describes the state I was in before Christ came.
Colossians 1:21 “This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions.” (NLT)
Don’t look at me like that! Without Christ, I was truly full of evil thoughts and actions, even though they were not always obvious to people out there. Can you imagine God having a relationship with a sinner like me?
The surprising thing is, God actually desired to have a relationship with me and other people like me, so he sent his Son Jesus to die on the Cross! What a sacrifice – sending your only Son who is perfect and sinless to die for a bunch of sinners – sinners who are permanently doing wrong!
The Cross is, therefore, a gift for you and I – an opportunity to be reconciled with God. God himself seeks to reestablish that broken relationship through his Son’s death on the cross. Awesome!
2 Corinthians 5:18a “And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ.” (NLT)
- Without the Cross, I would not be free
Free from what, you may ask. Aren’t we all free to make our own decisions and live our lives the way we know best?
The truth is, sin holds us captive in ways we sometimes do not even understand. Picture a little child who keeps dipping his hand in the sugar bowl to grab a few grains of sugar even though he knows that his mom has said no. No matter how hard he tries to control himself, his love for sugar drives him back to the bowl. We all behave the same way at times, as this is the effect of sin – doing things that we sometimes look back at and ask, “What on earth got into me?”
Who, then, can free me from the power that sin has over me because I obviously can’t free myself? Jesus can, and he did, by dying on the Cross!
Colossians 2:13-14 “You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.” (NLT)
The verse above does not mince its words – DEAD BECAUSE OF SIN! Thankfully, though God viewed us as dead and overwhelmed with the weight of our sin, he was gracious enough to send his Son to die on the Cross, so that we would be alive and free from the power of sin. And – not only did he forgive our sins, he also ‘rubbed out’ the charges that he had against us as sinners, choosing to let his Son take the blame.
This is so exciting! Once the record of charges of sin is blotted out, you and I are free to start afresh! There is nobody who can bring up accusations against us because the Lord has erased them all!! On the Cross, Jesus takes my old, rotten life and replaces it with a new one! Wow!
Finally, let me share a verse that highlights the love God had for me when I was in my sinful state.
Romans 5:8 “But God clearly shows and proves His own love for us, by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (AMP)
Dear friends, is the Cross as important to you as it is to me? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below, it would be great to hear from you!
Happy Easter!