April 06 – MESSAGE OF THE CROSS!

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (I Corinthians 1:18).

Though there are several teachings in the world, the teaching of Jesus Christ alone remains as the teaching of Salvation. It provides us with divine strength. Let us meditate the preaching of the cross here.

1          It is a teaching of love: Though the whole Bible reveals the love of God, the divine love is flowing like a flood in the portions related to the sufferings on the cross. His sufferings and sorrows point out only one thing, and that is “Son, Daughter, I love you.”

The world is longing for love. One becomes frustrated when one does not receive the love. Jesus Christ loves us wholeheartedly, and He revealed this by giving His life on the cross. He had told in John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends,” and accordingly, He gave His life and became the benchmark of love.

2          It is a teaching of forgiveness: Jesus Christ, who hanged on the cross, poured out all His blood for all human beings. The Scripture says, “In Him, we have redemption through His blood” (Ephesians 1:7, Colossians 1:14).

3          It is a teaching of divine healing: The stripes which Jesus Christ accepted on the cross, promise you the divine healing and health. The Scripture says, “…by whose stripes you were healed” (I Peter 2:24). “…by His stripes, we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

Once, a missionary by name, George was preaching about ‘divine healing’ in Africa. A dreaded disease called ‘Black Plague’ was spreading there at that time. This disease caused blood vomit, and people were dying in thousands. It was a contagious disease, and the vomited blood helped in rapid spreading of the disease.

But even, when George poured the blood vomited by a patient in his hands, he was least affected. When seen through a microscope, people noticed the poisonous germs in the blood dying in his hands. Just because he had attached himself with the cross, he was able to do this. Dear children of God, whatever be the disease or sickness with which you have been affected, when the hands of Christ who accepted the stripes for your sake touch you, all the poisonous germs in you will die. The disease will flee.

To meditate: “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9).