¹³ When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, ¹⁴ having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.Colossians 2:13-15

Do you ever stop and really think about what Jesus did on the cross? I know we have all heard the story in Sunday School and on Easter Sunday. It’s a great story, isn’t it? I can hear the preacher on the pulpit shouting. “Jesus died for your sins brothers and sisters!” and the people in the church nod their heads in agreement and say, “Amen!” And for the most part we move on…. how much thought really goes into what Jesus actually did for us? I’m not trying to say we don’t appreciate it; I’m simply asking the question, do we really understand the depth of what Jesus did and why He did it?

Let’s think about this for a second. It’s not like Jesus “took a bullet” for us. I mean compared to what He endured, taking a bullet would have been mild and easy. He was beaten, tortured, mutilated, ridiculed, and humiliated without cause, He was totally innocent of any wrong doing, yet He endured it. When Jesus walked the Earth, as Mike Bickle would say, He was fully GOD, yet fully man. As fully man, He felt every bit of pain that was being inflicted on Him, the physical pain and the emotional pain, yet He endured it. As fully GOD, He could have brought an end to the torture He was enduring, He could have stopped it all, yet He chose to endure it. Why did He choose to go through all that He endured for us? It was all for love!

His love for us is so great that He endured torture and the cross so that we would be ransomed from sin and the grave and reconciled back to Him. Have you ever considered what it must have felt like when they pushed the crown of thorns into the flesh of His head? Have you ever been pricked by a rose bush? Eek! Painful! And rose thorns are half the size of the thorns used in the crown of the thrones. Consider what it felt like to be whipped by a cat of nine tails. This whip separated into nine strands so that with one stroke the person felt nine strands slap across their back, ripping flesh away due to the sharp object in each strand. He was beaten beyond recognition. They then nailed each hand and His feet to the cross and He hung there. His feet were not on a platform, like we see in our precious passion plays, so that He was able to support His own weight while on the cross. The full weight of His body was being supported only by the nails that were through his hands and feet, which would have been ripping His flesh even more due to the weight of His body. The pain must have been excruciating, but yet He chose to do this for us. Could you have done it?

I know what you’re thinking; you’re thinking that He did it because we are His family, He loves us and we love Him, right? A person would do anything for their family, right? Well, He did this for us before we were part of His family. He did it for the ones that were beating and torturing Him. He did it for the ones that were rejecting Him. He did it for us even though He knew that we would reject Him for years before we would actually accept Him as our Lord and savior. He knew that He would have to wait patiently for us. He did it also understanding that some of us would never acknowledge Him, some would reject Him to their grave, yet He still saw to it that each person would have an opportunity to choose redemption. This type of love is far greater and more powerful than any other love we know or can comprehend.

This love is patient and kind. This love heals and delivers. This love accepts and affirms. What a love! Wow! God is so awesome! When you think of the Cross, think of what motivated Jesus to complete the work… “It is finished!” He was motivated by fiery, passionate love for each of us. He had you in mind, He had me in mind! He wanted to give us a way to come to Him freely and boldly, crying Abba Father!

“This is Jesus, in His glory, King of Heaven, dying for me!” Amen!