The Cross
To impart a clear understanding of the price that Jesus paid for the sins of humanity and to receive the finished work at the Cross.
It may look like a sign of defeat but, to us it is a sign of victory.
Today people carry the symbol of the cross as a jewelry accessory, but many do not understand what it truly represents. It represents our freedom, healing, deliverance, restoration and prosperity.
Without the cross, there is no forgiveness, cleansing, or healing. With it, there is total freedom, peace, and joy.
The Cross
Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree)
The cross was Christ's response to man's need of a redeeming Savior.
Sin required His substitutionary death, once and for all.
The cross was a Roman form of execution, symbolizing that the one who died in such fashion was cursed. It involved tremendous suffering and was the most abominable kind of death a person could suffer. It was death full of degradation and humiliation.
By His Stripes
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering. Yet we considered him punished by God. Stricken by Him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities the punishment that brought us peace was on him and by His wounds we are healed.
Every time he was whipped we were being healed, delivered and set free.
We are now healed of every sickness every disease and all pain.
Every one of the 39 lashes He received tore the flesh from His back, but with every blow the price was being paid for all the sickness, pain, and shame of lost humanity. (Interestingly enough, scientists have discovered 39 different types of infirmities in the human body.)
Jesus willingly bore the pain and the shame of this horrible lashing. Every stripe upon His back declared His great love for every human being that would ever live.
Crown of Thorns
Next a crown of thorns was pressed upon His precious head. These were not the little thorns we are used to seeing on rose bushes, but long two-inch thorns that penetrated His skull, causing Him to bleed disfiguring that He was not even recognizable.
Isaiah 52:14 "But many were amazed when they saw Him. His face was so disfigured He seemed hardly human, and from his appearance, one would scarcely know he was a man.
We are healed of all emotional and mental trauma. The mental and emotional abuse shame, guilt and condemnation.
Crucifixion
Likewise the chief priests also mocking among themselves with the scribes, said, he saved others, himself he cannot save.
The religious people of that time felt so proud. That they had gotten ride of Jesus but really he was dying for there sins too!
Every one of our sins was nailed to the cross. (Every sinful place we went and every sinful thing we touched has completely been removed)
Little did they know that the Son of God hung willingly from that cross, bearing the penalty for their sins and the sins of all to come He was totally alone, forsaken by God and man.
It is true that the actions of men contributed to Jesus' death, but we must never forget that it was God's plan for Jesus to die on the cross in payment for our sins. Jesus gave his life willingly for us: it was not taken from Him.
Radically renounce and turn from all known sin in your life, Receive forgiveness for every wrongdoing that you have ever committed. Embrace God's forgiveness as a gift. You cannot earn it.
We must long to grasp an understanding of the cross. You become a different person once you have a revelation of the price that Jesus paid for our redemption.
When we received Christ there was an exchange that took place:
Having faith in what Jesus did for us on the Cross is what enables us to live a victorious Christian life.
By dying on the cross for us, Jesus saved us from the penalty of sin which is eternal fire in Hell.
By Jesus death on the Cross and His resurrection, He delivered the believer from the power of sin and death and the old nature, the Bible says that we are now a new creation in Christ. We have become partakers of God's nature
Therefore if any person is (engrafted) in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old (previous moral and spiritual condition) has passed away. Behold the fresh and new has come!