THE TRUE PURPOSE OF THE CROSS 9-1-24
VIDEO PEOPLE THANKING AT THE CROSS
What is the purpose of the cross in our lives? Taking up the way of the cross is to really find ourselves, to be set free from the prison of the world system. It is not the American dream that is our purpose, but it is a way of life in the eternal kingdom of God. Taking up the cross is dying to ourselves and living in and for Christ alone. For the joy that was set before him, He endured the cross. The Pharisees didnt comprehend Jesus and His mission. It was not about Himself but serving mankind. The result of Jesus laying down His life on the cross is you and I are new creations.
Mk 8:34 Jesus had his disciples and the crowd gather around him. And he said to them: If you truly want to follow me, you should at once completely disown your own life. And you must be willing to share my cross and experience it as your own, as you continually surrender to my ways.
35 For if you let your life go for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, you will continually experience true life. But if you choose to keep your life for yourself, you will forfeit what you try to keep.
36 For what use is it to gain all the wealth and power of this world, with everything it could offer you, at the cost of your own life?
37 And what could be more valuable to you than your own soul? TPT
deny himself [forget, ignore, disown, and lose sight of himself and his own interests]
John 3:16 The entire cosmos is the object of Gods affection! And he is not about to abandon his creation - the gift of his Son is for mankind to realize their origin in him who mirrors their authentic birth - begotten not of flesh but of the Father! MIRROR
Matt 27:40 "You bragged that you could tear down the Temple and then rebuild it in three days so show us your stuff! Save yourself! If you're really God's Son, come down from that cross!" MSG
Heb 12:2 Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed that exhilarating finish in and with God he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God.
MSG
RO 6:6 We perceive that our old lifestyle was co-crucified together with him; this concludes that the vehicle that accommodated sin in us, was scrapped and rendered entirely useless. Our slavery to sin has come to an end.
7 If nothing else stops you from doing something wrong, death certainly does.
8 Faith sees us joined in his death and alive with him in his resurrection.
9 It is plain for all to see that death lost its dominion over Christ in his resurrection; he need not ever die again to prove a further point.
10 His appointment with death was 1once-off. As far as sin is concerned, he is dead. The reason for his death was to take away the sin of the world; his life now exhibits our union with the life of God.
11 This reasoning is equally relevant to you. Calculate the cross; there can only be one logical conclusion: he died your death; that means you died to sin, and are now alive to God. Sin-consciousness can never again feature in your future! You are in Christ Jesus; his Lordship is the authority of this union.
12 You are under no obligation to sin; it has no further rights to dominate your dead declared body. Therefore let it not entice you to obey its lusts. MIRROR
1 Cor 1:17 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.
18 The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. MSG
↕↕↕
1 COR 1:17 My mandate was not about winning members for some Christian club through baptism! I am commissioned to declare the Good News without any strings attached; nothing to distract from the powerful effect of the revelation of the cross of Christ.
18 To their own loss the message of the cross seems foolish to some; but to us who discover our salvation there, it is the dynamic of God. MIRROR
GAL 6:14 May my boasting be in nothing but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. The religious-systems and applause of this world have no appeal to me. As far as they are concerned, I am like a dead person.
15 The new creation in Christ steals the show; not whether someone is circumcised or not! (God associated us in Christ; when he died we died, when he was raised we were raised together with him in newness of life.)
16 Our union with Christ sets the pace and makes us the true Israel, not whether we are Jew or Gentile, circumcised or not! Oh, what peace we discover in his mercy! This rule is the new law we submit ourselves to as the principle of our daily walk!MIRROR
Phil 2:8 Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion MSG
COL 2:13-This realm of death describes our former state, for we were held in sins grasp. But now, weve been resurrected out of that realm of death never to return, for we are forever alive and forgiven of all our sins!
14 He canceled out every legal violation we had on our record and the old arrest warrant that stood to indict us. He erased it allour sins, our stained soulhe deleted it all and they cannot be retrieved! Everything we once were in Adam has been placed onto his cross and nailed permanently there as a public display of cancellation.
15 Then Jesus made a public spectacle of all the powers and principalities of darkness, stripping away from them every weapon and all their spiritual authority and power to accuse us. And by the power of the cross, Jesus led them around as prisoners in a procession of triumph. He was not their prisoner; they were his! TPT
1 COR 2:7 We voice words of wisdom that were hidden in silence for timeless ages; a mystery unfolding Gods Masterful plan whereby he would redeem his glory in man. Our glorification has always been Gods agenda, even before time was.
8 Neither the politicians nor the religious leaders of the day had a clue about this mystery; if they did, they would never have crucified the Lord whose death redeemed our glory! MIRROR
Gal 3:1 You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it's obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the Cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.
2 Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God's Message to you?
3 Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it?
4 Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up! MSG
Gal 3:13 Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the Cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse.
14 And now, because of that, the air is cleared and we can see that Abraham's blessing is present and available for non-Jews. MSG
↕↕↕
GAL 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse as consequence of our failure to keep the law. In his cross he concentrated the total curse of the human race upon himself. In his abandoning himself to death, he absorbed and dissolved the horror of the curse in his own person. Scripture declares that anyone hanging on a tree embodies the curse.
14 This act of Christ released the blessing of Abraham upon the Gentiles! Now we are free to receive the blessing of the Spirit. MIRROR
Eph 1:7 Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we're a free people free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free!
8 He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need,
9 letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ,
10 a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.
11 It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living,
12 part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone. MSG
EPH 2:15 Ethnic hatred has been dissolved by the crucifixion of his precious body on the cross. The legal code that stood condemning every one of us has now been repealed by his command. His triune essence has made peace between us by starting overforming one new race of humanity, Jews and non-Jews fused together in himself!
16 Two have now become one, and we live restored to God and reconciled in the body of Christ. Through his crucifixion, hatred died. TPT
Col 1:22 But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God's side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence.
23 You don't walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message. MSG
1 Peter 2:24 He personally bore our sins in His [own] body on the tree [as on an altar and offered Himself on it], that we might die (cease to exist) to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. AMP
Gal 2:20 Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
21 I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily. MSG
2 COR 5:17 ow, in the light of your co-inclusion in his death and resurrection, whoever you thought you were before, in Christ you are a brand new person! The old ways of seeing yourself and everyone else are over. Acquaint yourself with the new! MIRROR