The Cross

My intention wasn't to have the last several devotions be connected...but that seems to be how God has been showing me things.  Bridge Work sort of followed the Road Signs.  And today's is about the Cross...which is basically how I left it with Bridge Work! 

In my reading today a question was asked "when you hear the word 'cross' what does it mean to you?" "To you, is the meaning of the cross ...historical?...religious?...personal?"
At the end of the reading it wanted me to complete a sentence "For me the cross of Christ means..
[Do You Believe? 40-day Devotional by Robert Noland]

So of  course the song that I included in my last blog by Point of Grace plays in my head!  "There's a cross to bridge the great divide!"

The CROSS that Christ died on was more than an instrument of execution...as they were in history.

It is more than a scene of Christ dying on the cross depicted in all forms of artwork.

Or at least I hope it is more than these things to you. 

For me the Cross is personal.  Yes, it is historical, because it was God's design to save us from sin...to have His only Son die upon that cross.

BUT if it just stays historical fact, which isn't disputed by too many historians, then personally, spiritually we miss the point of the Cross of Christ!

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. 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

Also, if it remains a religious symbol. There is the image of Christ suffering on the cross....hanging by His hands and feet. OR an empty cross, which symbolizes the risen Savior...One who was not defeated by death, or the cross!  Something that hangs in our churches or around our necks or off our ears or tattooed on our bodies, but has no personal meaning...again we have missed the point.

We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. Acts 10:39-40

I pray that the historical and religious meaning of the cross are extremely personal to you today, that the message of the cross is not foolishness to you, but it defines who you are!

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. Colossians 1:15-23

My answer?

"For me the cross of Christ means...

that moment when Christ took MY sins, saw MY face and died...for ME. 

Photo by Rachel Ramsdell