The journey to the top of Calvary must have been difficult. Jesus was exhausted as he carried the weapon of his demise all the way up Calvary. He’d been beaten. He’d been mocked. Yet he endured the pain of that brutal cross.
For me. For you. For the sins of the world.
Since the day Jesus was nailed to the cross, it has become more than a tool for execution. For me it is a reminder of forgiveness, how much I’m loved, and the tool used to redeem my brokenness. To others the cross is just art, something to look at. But as you can see from the pictures I took during my recent trip to Guatemala, even when the cross is represented artistically, it can still mean something.
Earlier this month we celebrated Christ’s death on the cross. I posted these pictures and asked my followers what the cross means to them.
Freedom.
Confidence.
A reason to love others.
But then one of my friends said this, “it’s something I don’t like. I gets in the way of everything I want to do.”
I agree with him. The cross is beautiful and it sets us free from our sins, but it also messes up our lives. Christ made the ultimate sacrifice for us and so how can we not sacrifice when Christ asks us to?
So, what does the cross mean to you? And a little deeper, what do you think Christ is asking of you?
I hope everyone posting this almost a month after easter isn’t too late. But then, I guess, the cross is always relevant.
The Neighborhood Café 
By the time “the Cross” came into my life, my life was “messed up” enough all by itself! Just try living out your (blind) “dream” of what you think you’d like to be doing, regardless of what the Cross seems to be calling you to do,… Chances are, you’ll have found a few of life’s ditches to get “stuck” in along the way,… And then the very sight of your Savior, hanging there “in eternity” so-to-speak, waiting there “just for you”, out of love for you, until the very moment you realized (finally) that you really needed Him,… ah, now there is a welcome sight to behold!
“The Cross” is a welcome sign on our own personal door to eternal splendor, eternal life, eternal freedom,… “a New Life in Christ” awaiting us,… It IS a “good-bye” to lost and dying ways,… When we are personally ready to “come to Christ” (as our own Crucified Savior), we will be transferring that “old failing love” that has let us down so many times, (for the things of this world on its own failing, impermanent and evaporating terms), for a deeper and true Reality of the most positive of personal Affirmations,… YOU are Loved,… YOU are Beautiful,… GOD has been waiting to receive YOU into His Welcoming and Loving arms,… totally and completely,… YOU are rescued from meaninglessness,… YOU have a place, now warm and cozy, to rest your aching heart, your weary bones, your failed and frustrated dreams,… GOD LOVES YOU,… THIS WAS ALL FOR YOU,…
Matthew 11:28 “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
He IS always there,… But until we really need Him, we don’t “see” Him,… Instead we see pain, hurt, desperation, cruelty, disgrace, barbarism, torture, evil, ugliness, failure,… so we look away,… again and again,… we see “no hope,”… we see death,… death of the flesh,… death as punishment for sin,… and this death looks “very final”,… we see agony,… we see our own powerlessness,… we can’t fix or change anything,… we can’t imagine really what this is,… It is in many ways “beyond our comprehension,”…
It may be helpful, in a time of “need” or frustration, to study the Cross, to contemplate the Cross, to meditate before it,… to reach beyond the limits of our finite mind,… to “become childlike and open the deep places of our soul” and enter into some of the greater depths and mystery associated with our vulnerable human and spiritual condition,…
For me, the intimate personal Love message of the Cross is the finest part,… but of course, when the “search and rescue mission” for your lost and dying soul is completed, the power of the Resurrection into “New Life” — (spiritual rebirth, truth, freedom and God’s abundant Grace) — is a pretty exciting dynamic too!
ESCAPE FROM REALITY!
GET OUT OF JAIL FREE!
FINDING TRUE LOVE!
It could sound like the latest “Blockbuster” imitation (and substitute drama) for “the real thing”,… But it IS God’s true and enduring promise and eternal call,… The real “Tale as old as time”,… God’s Beauty and Love triumphing over the degradation of satan’s hopeless and empty promises,… and very cheesy offerings of sin,…
Isaiah 28:16 “Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, ‘Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.’ ”
Isaiah 61:3 “To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”
The Cross is Good News, the Gospel, for those who come to Christ thereby,…
Revelation 3:20 “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
There is no substitute for Christ:
John 10:1-3 [Jesus the True Shepherd]
10 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”
A couple of “by the ways”:
First,… In earlier times, when the prevalence of “recreational and escapist drug usage” was not nearly as commonplace as it is in this deadly hour — (and for some of us it was actually non-existent!) — it was SO MUCH EASIER to “be in touch” more honestly with our pains and our needs,… they were pretty much just a “normal” and accepted part of life,… We could “grin and bear it” for a time, but I think it was much easier for us to admit that we were indeed lacking power to fill “all the needs inside” on our (human) own,… It was easier to bring “our whole hearts” to God, and receive “a whole, healing and effective Salvation” as a result,… (tangibly speaking),…
The First Commandment tells us to “have no other Gods before the Lord” (Exodus 20:3). I’m certainly convinced that this “now” kind of common drug usage is “spiritually counter-productive” and “sinful” in many cases,… but the “why” reason (beyond satan’s inherent taint in the products) remained somewhat “undefined,”… However, of late I have been seeing this type of regular “doping”/anesthetizing of our consciousness as a habitual and intentional violation of the First Commandment,… the drug that “hooks” becomes another “irresistible” God before the Lord, that competes for our attention and adoration, and so “robs God” of a part of us that is actually His,…
I think it is more difficult to turn our whole hearts to God, to feel/experience/understand our full need for God, in a world that has rationalized and promoted so many methods of “escapism” and “distraction” and avoiding a “sober reality” at all costs,… But few realize what this could actually be costing them,… even their eternal life,…
btw 2,… (since we’re pretty much “family”),… Happy Birthday to me!,… 66 Big Ones & ALL the Glory certainly goes to God!! I’m a “happy camper!” & Thank goodness! (-:
GOD BLESS YOU!
Wow! Happy Birthday!!! I hope you have a blessed day.
TY!!!!!!!!!!! & THANKS SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! XOXOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!