Crucify Him!

[amadis]

Crucify Him!






But they kept on calling out, saying, "Crucify, crucify Him!" Luke 23:21

If they crucified Jesus, they will crucify us all who follow Him. What they did to Jesus, they will do to us, too. But this is the highest wisdom and expression of our Father's love towards us. He knows that our flesh is our worst enemy and He wants us to get rid of it. The Lord said, if you want to be my disciples, you must deny yourself, take up the cross and follow Me. True followers of Jesus Christ are those who, in practical ways, are learning His ways, those who are learning the ways of the cross.


Some may say, "Konti, you are putting too much emphasis on the cross. Keep focusing on what the Lord has done for us, instead. Keep focusing on His love, keep focusing on the heavenly places, where He has put us.


Praise the Lord, He loves us, praise the Lord for what He has done for us. Praise the Lord, He has put us in Him in the heavenly places. We should always encourage one another about these things, reminding one another of what He has done for us. But, if we really want to experience the power of His resurrection, we should experience first, the destruction work of the cross.


Somebody may ask: What would be the cross for me? I, myself, have been asking from the Lord the cross, without understanding that He has been giving it to me every day, thinking that, in order to experience the cross in my life, something big would happen to me. My imagination would go wild, thinking of things that would terrify anyone.


Well, while this may happen to some, (think of Job) this is not the way the Lord works with us. The Lord told us to take up the cross daily. The cross is right there, in front of us, everyday. The matter is whether we are willing to take it up, or not. This means, we should learn to give up our own ways everyday, at our homes with our family members, at our work with our colleges, with our friends and even in the church with our brothers and sisters. Everyday we must accept anything against our flesh, as opportunities to receive the cross as opportunites to set ourselves at a higher position, as opportunities to experience the power of resurrection.


Let us be faithful to the Lord in these small things so that He would entrust us bigger things.


Love in Him,
a brother.

 

[amadis]

A brother in Jesus sent this :
Hi Brothers and Sisters,


[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I am remember something that a woman showed me before sometime.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]In the Passover time (on Thursday night) she, some others women, were gathered in a church building remembering the Lord's death.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]And there, she had a vision (or a dream). She saw Jesus, alive, that seemed to ask them: "Why do you women cry for Me? I am alive!"[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I don't know how, but this came to my heart before some minutes ago and then I saw this writing of brother Kont.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Maybe we have to be focused more on His Resurrection, that was the purpose of the cross. His story did not end at the cross,[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]but at the empty grave. This is the power of our faith.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]The power of the resurrection was the power behind the cross. A cross without the resurrection is invalid, is non-sense at all.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial,
 helvetica, sans-serif]There is no resurrection without cross, but if there is only the cross and everything finishes there, there is no meaning at all.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]This is also why the Lord's day became the day of the Resurrection and not the day of the Crucifixion. That is why the early Christians[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]decided to gather on the resurrection day (as shown from the early writings).[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]It is the power of resurrection that transformed the lives of His disciples and the resurrection power became their gospel that was spread to the nations.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]A joyful message for a Triumphant Lord.[/FONT]
If we see the Resurrection, we will endure the Cross, otherwise it is impossible at all to endure that.

 

[AnandaHya]

 

[amadis]

Hi,


Also, I want to add to that message of brother Kont, that Jesus was taking His Cross everyday.
His cross was not an isolated event, but it was His way of life. So, Jesus cross started when He was
born in the crib, between the cattle, and then going on, at every tear He drop in His earthly life,
from His childhood when He was crying from the common pains of the children,
and later on, when He saw and felt the clutches of the enemy in His creation.


The cross has only one purpose: To learn us do be obedient to our Father.
This obedience is not an outer obedience that we can learn out of fear from judgment,
but an inner obedience, a joyful obedience at the divine life of the Father.
Jesus learned this obedience as the Son of Man. He learned this obedience
as a full human being. He was not pretending to be a human, but He was fully a human
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]and learned the obedience through the daily cross He bore.[/FONT]


[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I think that the main purpose of the cross is not to destroy us, or to annihilate us.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif](Yes, we deserve to be destroyed and annihilated, but He has redeemed us and we are resting now in His love)[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]The main purpose of the cross is to teach us that joyful obedience that we cannot learn other-ways.[/FONT]
So, in order to summarize, I would say that the cross learn us to be obedient and dependent to the Divine Life.
And this dependence to the Divine Life brings the Resurrection
by a brother in Lord Jesus.