THE CROSS

John 19:17-18 17 They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own CROSS, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha. 18 There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between.
DEVOTE:
The cross is the humble hinge of history and humanity – God in human flesh dying for the sins of the whole world – “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross”. (Philippians 2:8)
“He poured Himself out to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:12)
When we look at the Cross, it is the culmination of the Incarnation – the epitome of humility. Crucified in weakness (2 Cor 13:4) between two thieves, Christ’s intercession for the “losers” of this world is the manifest humility of heaven, and indeed, the hope of all the earth! “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
Christ’s identification with weakness, distances those who are the so-called “achievers” or “winners” in life. “How can the cross be a win-win?” they ask. “It just doesn’t make sense.”: 1 Corinthians 1:18 says, “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
If you can choose today to not be ashamed of the cross, then the weakness of God becomes the power for you to live a strong Christian life.
PRAY:
Father, “May it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Galatians 6:14)