All of human history had been moving toward one climactic moment: the death of Jesus Christ. From the first hint in Genesis 3:15 that the serpent would strike the heel of the man to Simeon’s prophecy to Mary that a sword would pierce her soul; Luke 2:34–35.
History has held its breath—waiting for the promise to be fulfilled. Those prophecies were finally, painfully fulfilled as the Lifegiver gave up his spirit on the cross.

He did it for you.
He has graced me in the cross.
The cross is the ultimate expression of God’s friendship.

This sacrifice was the only way our sins could be paid for without our own eternal death. Christ’s death paid the price of our sin. When Jesus said, “It is finished,” he meant there was nothing else to do, nothing left to pay. He paid it all—totally, completely, permanently!!
John 19:25–42

D.A. Carson’s book, ‘The Cross and Christian Ministry’ brings the following compelling thoughts to bear for our lives. “The message of the cross is nothing other than God’s way of doing what he said he would do: by the cross, God sets aside and shatters all human pretensions to strength and wisdom.

This is a central theme of Scripture. God made us to gravitate toward him, to acknowledge with joy and obedience that he is the center of all, that he alone is God. The heart of our wretched rebellion is that each of us wants to be number one. We make ourselves the center of all our thoughts and hopes and imaginings. This vicious lust to be first works its way outward not only in hatred, war, rape, greed, covetousness, malice, bitterness, and much more, but also in self-righteousness, self-promotion, manufactured religions, and domesticated gods.

We ruefully acknowledge how self-centered we are after we have had an argument with someone. Typically, we mentally conjure up a rerun of the argument, thinking up all the things we could have said, all the things we should have said. In such re-runs, we always win. After an argument, have you ever conjured up a rerun in which you lost?

Our self-centeredness is deep. It is so brutally idolatrous that it tries to domesticate God himself. In our desperate folly we act as if we can outsmart God, as if he owes us explanations, as if we are wise and self-determining while he exists only to meet our needs.”

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