April 7, 2012

“The Message & the Cross”

Scripture:

Genesis 3:14-15
So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you will be punished. You are singled out from all the domestic and wild animals of the whole earth to be cursed. You will grovel in the dust as long as you live, crawling along on your belly. From now on, you and the woman will be enemies, and your offspring and her offspring will be enemies. He will crush your head and you will strike His heel.” (NLT)

Observation:

Before the Lord was nailed to the cross to die; before the Lord was buried in a tomb; before the Lord was risen back to life and before the Lord ascended back into Heaven, He, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, fulfilled God’s promise to the Serpent many years ago after the Devil succeeded in deceiving Adam and Eve, causing mankind to fall away from God Presence. It was thousands of years ago that Jesus, knowing He was about to be crucified, took His disciples to the Mount of Olives to pray. And when Jesus went off alone to pray to the Father, an angel from Heaven came to give Him the strength He would need to do God’s will, rather than His own human will (Luke 22:43). While alone and on His knees with His spirit in agony beyond human words, Jesus prayed so intensely that the sweat dripping from His brow onto the ground was that of blood. But with the strength from Heaven, Jesus stood on His feet and stomped fearlessly on the head of Satan crushing forever the power that the Devil held over mankind.

Application:

Because Christ Jesus overcame the power of Satan, He was able to do for us what we could never do for ourselves; defeat both the power of sin over our lives and the grip of death that held us captive to our fears and failures. What a power-filled message the cross has for any and all peoples everywhere, for once you believe in the message of the Cross and the resurrection and redeeming power that its truth holds, and once you begin to understand the significance of what our Lord God volunteered to do for the salvation of mankind, we, too, will humbly fall to our knees asking God to forgive all of our ignorance in sinning, and to fill us with the resurrection power of God to fight the everyday battles against the Enemy of our souls so that we can live out our lives in thanksgiving and praise to the awesome God who saved us from all Hell. Jesus was the first of many to rise from dead into eternal life. In this selfless act of love, Jesus defeated the power of sin and death that Satan had over our human existence. Jesus has indeed been raised from the grave, my friends, after being murdered at the hands of Satan, so that we, too, can experience His resurrection power and have a share in God’s Glory, where we will once again live and walk and breathe in God’s Holy Presence on a new Earth, in a new universe, for all eternity.

Prayer:

Thank You, dear Lord, for paying the debt of my sinful rebellion and that of every believer. What a selfless act of love this is. Even thought it is impossible to give back what you so graciously gave us, the least anyone one can do is live this difficult in ways that bring glory to You.

Amen