THE
CROSS
BREAD
3 He was
despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him
not. 4 Surely
he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him
stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our
transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought
us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone
astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:3-6 (NIV)
27 Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and
gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. 28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29 and then
twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in
his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the
Jews!” they said. 30 They spit on
him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. 31 After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put
his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him. 32 As they were
going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to
carry the cross. 33 They came to
a place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). 34 There they
offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall; but after tasting it, he refused
to drink it. 35 When they
had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. 36 And sitting down, they kept watch over him there. Matthew
27:27-36 (NIV)
33 At the
sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus
cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”--which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 35 When some of those standing
near heard this, they said, “Listen, he's calling Elijah.” 36 One man ran, filled a sponge
with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now
leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said. 37 With a loud cry, Jesus
breathed his last. 38 The
curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who
stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely
this man was the Son of God!” Mark
15:33-39 (NIV)
27 A
large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for
him. 28 Jesus
turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do
not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For
the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs
that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then
“‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to
the hills, “Cover us!’” 31 For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will
happen when it is dry?” 32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with
him to be executed. 33 When
they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with
the criminals--one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are
doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. Luke 23:27-34 (NIV)
16 Finally
Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. So the soldiers took charge of
Jesus. 17 Carrying
his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is
called Golgotha). 18 Here
they crucified him, and with him two others--one on each side and Jesus in the
middle. John 19:16-18 (NIV)
31 Seeing
what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not
abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. 32 God has raised this Jesus to
life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Acts 2:31-32 (NIV)
17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the
gospel--not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of
its power. 18 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 1:17-18 (NIV)
BUTTER
“The cross was the goal of Jesus
from the very beginning. His birth was so there would be His death. The
incarnation was for our atonement. He was born to die so that we might live.
And when He had accomplished the purpose He had come to fulfill, He summed it
up with a single word: finished.” Greg Laurie
“‘…He was unwilling to walk in Judea
because the Jews were seeking to kill Him.’
John 7:1.
But He came
to be killed.
That was the
purpose of His coming.
That was the
reason for His Incarnation.
He took on
mortality of flesh that He might prove His mortality by dying.
Why, then,
these evasions?
Because He
would die on the schedule of His Father, not at the pleasure of His enemies.
Because He
would first finish the work He came to do.
No one would
take His life from Him.
He would lay
it down.” RCS
“I simply argue
that the Cross should be raised at the center of the marketplace as well as on
the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified
in a cathedral between two candles; but on a cross between two thieves; on the
towns' garbage heap; at a crossroad, so cosmopolitan they had to write his
title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek... at the kind of place where cynics talk
smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where He died.
And that is what He died about. So, that is where church-men ought to be and
what churchmen ought to be about.” Rev. Dr. George McLeod, Minister, Church of
Scotland, 1895-1991
“The
only ground on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us to His favor is
through the Cross of Christ. There is no
other way! Forgiveness, which is so easy
for us to accept, cost the agony at Calvary.
We should never take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy
Spirit, and our sanctification in simple faith, and then forget the enormous
cost to God that made all of this ours.
Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. The cost to God was the Cross of Christ. To forgive sin, while remaining a holy God,
this price had to be paid. Never accept
a view of the fatherhood of God if it blots out the atonement. The revealed truth of God is that without the
atonement He cannot forgive – He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being
brought back to God through the atonement of the Cross. God’s forgiveness is possible only in the
supernatural realm……Once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you
will be held as in a vise, constrained by the love of God.” Oswald
Chambers
“No
pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.” William
Penn
“Being a ‘missionary’
(one who is sent) is not a matter of crossing the sea, but of seeing the cross. Hudson
Taylor
“And
if you don’t lie prostrate on the ground before that cross, you have never seen
it: if you are not humbled in the
presence of Jesus, you don’t know Him.
You were so lost that nothing could save you but the sacrifice of God’s
only begotten. Think of that, and as
Jesus lowered Himself for you, bow yourself in lowliness at His feet. A sense of Christ’s amazing love to us has a
greater tendency to humble us than even the conscious awareness of our own
guilt……Pride cannot live beneath the cross.”
Charles H. Spurgeon
HEART SAVOR
- · Jesus’ blood covers my sin.
- · Jesus carried His cross and as his follower I, too, will carry a cross. 23 Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23 (NIV)
- · Out of His pain comes my rejoicing – Him making beauty out of ashes on my behalf. All glory due His great Name. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11 (NIV)
