Contemplate the Cross – Day 215

Contemplate the Cross

Day 215

“The clearest demonstration of the love of God is the cross,” says Dr. Larry Crabb. “Without an understanding of the cross, you’re never going to get God’s love clear in your mind.

Do you feel unlovable? Have people turned away from you in your grief? Has anyone glibly offered to pray for you and shared Scripture with you without really taking time to listen to you? Have you heard the story of what Jesus did on the cross, but do not feel it personally? Instead of focusing on how inadequate other people are at expressing their love for you, direct your attention to the cross of Christ. Take time to listen to its message of love.

Crabb continues, “This hanging on the cross is the richest, clearest, most convincing demonstration of God’s love. Without contemplating the cross and looking at it, Christians, you draw the wrong conclusions sometimes.”

Direct your attention to the cross at Calvary. Here is where you are reconciled to God, where you receive the fullness of Christ through His shed blood. If you continued to direct your focus to the cross throughout the day, the next day, and the days after that, you would know without a doubt His love for you. You would begin to live your life on a higher plane.

“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [Jesus Christ], 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” (Colossians 1:19-20).

Loving God, the Bible says that it was Your pleasure to reconcile me to You through this amazing sacrifice on the cross. Help me to focus on the cross and to understand the intense personal significance that I will find there. Amen.