THE WONDERS OF THE CROSS

LIFE OF THE CROSS - THE BEGINNING

In the beginning, the Bible says God created man in His own image and gave him dominion over everything on the surface of the earth (Genesis 1:26;). This means man was to reign and rule over the earth without grief, sorrow, sickness or anything that is not of the Lord, as the Lord was in continual communication with man. God Himself came down in the cool of the day (Genesis3:8 ;) to communicate with man and have fellowship with man.

The serpent brought sin through disobedience, and broke man’s relationship with God. They did what God asked them not to do; they ate the forbidden fruit. They disobeyed God and this sin caused a break in relationship between God and man. God was displeased, because sin was not in the original nature of man; because God created man in His image. Sin was not part of God’s plan for man.

After sin came, every other evil thing that is in the world today followed. Hardship, sickness, poverty, failure, death, pain, sorrow, grief, wickedness and every other evil thing you can think of. These things came into the world because of sin and self.

After this, God sought for a way to bring man back to Himself, because the heart of man became so evil (Gen. 6:5) and began doing several evil things that goes against God’s original holy plan for man.

God found a way. He found a way to restore His relationship with man. He found a way to take away the sinful nature of man and bring back man’s original nature, the nature and image of God. It was the Cross. God’s only begotten Son was the answer; God’s son had to come, suffer and die in our place so that we may have His life.  He gave His life as an exchange.

Isaiah 53:3-11 says it all:
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

Surely he hath borne our grief, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth.

He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? For He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was He stricken.

And He made His grave with the wicked and with the rich in His death; because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him, He hath put Him to grief: when thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.

He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities.

After sin and self came into the life of man, man became prone to sicknesses, poverty, pain, sorrow, grief and every other evil thing. Originally man was immune to all of these things but sin opened a gateway to the devil and his way of life.

Man no longer lived in the blessings and love of God; man lived outside of God’s love and under His wrath. Man was in enmity with God because of his evil ways. Man was at a loss; he lived missing out on God’s beautifully planned out life for him. This was a direct consequence of his disobedience.

I want you to realize, what we had, what we lost and then we will talk about what we have now through Christ and in Christ in the coming updates of this series.

Remain blessed.