The Cross – What Happened, and Why Is It the Center of the Universe?
The cross of Jesus is the turning point of all history – where God’s love and justice met to pay for our sin and open the way back to Him.
(Acts 17:11: Please learn to do your own Bible studies like this one – here.)
Some of the Main Scriptures
I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
1 Corinthians 2:2
Jesus IS the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.
Revelation 13:8
He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
Ephesians 1:4
Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered.
Hebrews 5:7-9
Yet it was the LORD’s (Abba Daddyo, the Father’s) will to crush him (Jesus) and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
Isaiah 53:10
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
John 3:16-17
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 John 4:7-11
Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin? (NLT)
Romans 2:4
Please realize, receive, and believe that the riches of God’s kindness, restraint, goodness, forbearance, longsuffering, and patience are intended to lead you to repentance (Romans 2:4 in various translations).
We have come to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
Hebrews 12:24
Go deeper: Hebrews 12:24 interlinear and the Greek word for “louder / stronger / better” (Strong’s 2909).
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8
About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
Matthew 27:46
The Great Exchange
This is the only time in the four Gospels where Jesus calls His Daddyo “God.” God is cold and distant – not near! This is exactly where the great exchange happens!! Our sin on Him – not on us. It never was in God’s intention! God forsakes Jesus – for us. We are not forsaken! Rejection is a lie from the pit of hell.
We answer:
“Thank you for taking my sin on you right now – forever. You took my shame, condemnation, rejection, and abandonment from my Daddyo on you. They are now (past, present, future) gone from me – completely. I am forgiven and perfect in the eyes of my Daddy. God is no longer distant from me – but as close as inside my own heart. And by the Spirit in me – I now cry: Abba, Daddyo!! I am NOT rejected. I am NOT abandoned. I am adopted – a true child of Daddyo.”
Please pray this over yourself – say this over yourself. It is the eternal truth of Heaven.
And we must choose to command:
“Hell! Stop lying to my thoughts and emotions. I reject rejection 100%! For you are a demon from hell manipulating my thoughts and emotions. I command you: spirit of rejection – leave me. I burn you and reject you. Go back to your master and report: I lost this one – ‘your name’!”
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:21
The Cross Speaks to Our Biggest Issue
I will go straight to it: The cross speaks directly – in the strongest, clearest, purest, most bloody, most loving way, through pure suffering from God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in raw evil and injustice – to our biggest issue: The hurt we feel. The injustice(s) we think He has committed. Because we are tempted by the enemy to believe the accusations, we receive doubts, and therefore – with “good reason” – we sin by acting on them: we lack trust in the complete goodness of the heart of the Father for us.
What? The cross speaks with the strongest possible language and action in love (literally) to us from the heart of all three members of the Trinity: “You can completely trust me.” Look only to the cross – blinding yourself to answers from anywhere else (no circumstances, whether good, bad, or in-between). You can and must now obey the message of the cross and let all accusations against the total, perfect, good, loving, truthful, and just will of God go!! ❤️🩹❤️🔥🥰
The cross is…
- 👿 the peak of human and demonic evil, as well as of the fallenness of this world, and clear evidence of the curse that is on creation due to rebellion against love – our human evil is fully exposed, for Jesus was 100% innocent, 100% love, 100% justice!
- ❤️🔥 and it is the peak of the evidence of the love of Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit for us – in spite of us. It cries out clearly, undoubtedly, impossible to question, eternally, louder than all the “blood of Abel” (sin, injustice, demons, etc.): “GRACE!! FORGIVENESS!! I FULLY LOVE YOU! – FROM FATHER, SON, & HOLY SPIRIT!! DO YOU SEE MY FULLY LOVING HEART? DO YOU FULLY ALLOW YOURSELF TO RECEIVE IT AND BELIEVE IT?” The cross can, should, and will create in us all a seeing of wholehearted love – leading to existential wholehearted reception, to wholehearted response back: FULL heart-to-heart reconciliation.
The cross exposes the raw and real complete consequences of my sin and my body of sin – my sinful nature, the flesh: Death. Separation. Rejection. Bathed in pure justice. The cross exposes the raw bleeding heart of love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is the perfect love of God on display – forgiving our raw, unjust disobedience, rebellion, hurt, and injustice. Perfection pays for imperfection – fully! Redemption! Restoration! Healing! Grace! Forgiveness! There only will we and God be fully satisfied! Peace with God through Christ. Rebirth by the Holy Spirit coming into our spirit.
Photo: Brett Jordan via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
Peace – an Outstretched, Bleeding Hand
The cross – when rightly understood – heals the hurt we have allowed deep in our hearts and emotions through misinterpreting “God is in control.” It says from God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit – as an outstretched hand – from a bleeding, bloodied, gentle, humble, suffering heart: Peace?
Will you let Him say that to you – through the cross? And will you then respond: Yes, peace! I receive your outstretched bloody hand with a pure beating heart of love in it. Your love is proven, God, by the suffering of Jesus for me. I trust you again – through the cross only – completely, eternally.
How?
The decision of Jesus to leave Heaven and come to this destructive, deadly, sinful place is one thing. But even greater is the decision of Jesus to love the Father, love us, and love Himself in the most extreme suffering: physical pain – whipping and crucifixion; emotional pain – 100% unfair rejection and abandonment by both His closest friends and family AND by the Father for our sins; and spiritual pain – all the demons of hell tormenting Him.
Why?
Jesus did this – not because of what we have done – actually the opposite: in spite of what we have done, Jesus LOVED, LOVES, AND WILL LOVE US – YES, YOU (& ME) – eternally.
So, I refuse to look to circumstances for the answer to my heart’s deepest question: Can I trust the Father fully? I look only to the eternal, final proof in the blood of Jesus of the New Covenant that He established by Himself, in Himself, perfectly, fully, forever. It is a resounding YES – Jesus loves me, the Father, my Daddyo, loves me, the mighty Helper, the Holy Spirit, loves me – fully, wholeheartedly! He has never not loved me and will never not love me wholeheartedly.
To read positive life changing and selfish life breaking teaching – see All Bible Studies of Peter Skov of Action Christianity. Let God lead you to what to engage with first.
And here is my YouTube course on the very minimum foundations of normal discipleship.
