Calvary-the Cross of Jesus Christ! If given only one choice for what you are most thankful for, it would have to be the most painful, awful event of history. “History has only one main event…the Cross.” The Cross on which the Prince of Glory died! The Cross is that gruesome, substitutionary place upon which the Lord of Heaven and Earth paid the penalty for all sin. Yes, I am thankful, Jesus Christ; God’s only begotten Son, through that awful Cross made it possible for His Father to become our Father. There He redeemed all who would believe on His name—the Lamb of God, slain for the sin of the entire world!
The religionist hates the Cross. “Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. Not even those who are circumcised obey the law, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your flesh (religious performance). May I never 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 6:12-14, NIV, parenthesis mine.
A brother recently shared about one who spoke at the Southern Wall in Jerusalem. He spoke on how God uses emptiness to create greater hunger for Him. Satan uses emptiness as a weapon. And God, like a skilled jujitsu fighter, uses his opponent’s thrust to defeat him. This is an apt description of the Cross!
The enemy thought he had the ultimate victory at Calvary. He thought the empty cross and full grave was his sure victory! He didn’t have a clue about Father’s thrust coming in the resurrection. The emptiness created by the vacuum called Calvary and its grave, has become the means of drawing all who would believe in the Gospel of the Cross, to himself.
Yes, the foolishness of the cross of Christ is still creating the vacuum to draw the Nations to Salvation. “If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.” Romans 6:5, NIV.
“God didn’t send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn’t send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center—Christ on the Cross—be trivialized into mere words.
The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hell-bent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense.” 1 Corinthians 1:17-18, The Message. I trust in your gratitude for Calvary, the efficacy of the cross is becoming clearer and clearer!
In the grip of Calvary’s grace! Ron Ross
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