The Offensive Cross

What was this all about?  You got something that a bunch of Romans putting some wood together for the purpose of killing people publicly, violently and slowly.  If that is all there is to it, why do we wear crosses from our chains, get magnets in the shape of crosses on our cars, tattoos of crosses? Lately I have been consumed by this one tiny, yet very dark section of human history.
There was nothing exceptional about the cross, until there was a Rabbi named Jesus of Nazareth that was put on one.  Before all the miraculous things in His earthly life happened, He was just a carpenter's son that graduated from rabbi school.  He lived a life that was against the grain.  He was surrounded by people that were slaves.  Some of them thought that they were better than others.  Some of those people were living in sin because no one had ever told them that there was a way out.  Basically, they were going to hell simply by circumstance and there was nothing that they could do about it.  Example of this is: blind men, lepers, women who have bled for 12 years, etc., they were all declared unclean and never allowed into the temple because of their conditions.
Jesus comes along, finds all these sorts of people that were declared unclean and hung out with them.  Then He goes a step further to say that these people were His disciples.  This was His mission.  God became man, stepped into the role of a slave, lived out the best life, served His creation, encouraged others to take part in it, threw a wrench in the way of life that said some were better than others, then died for the life that He lived.  THAT is the point that I need to reach with this.  The cross was an offense to the way of the world. The world says that if someone strikes you on your right cheek, you strike them back.  If someone says something offensive to you, you say something even more offensive back to them.  When someone hurts you, you have to hurt them back.  All of these things were what people lived every single day.  When Jesus came and lived a life that was contrary to all of these things, then He died on a cross because His life offended people, it was at that point that the cross became offensive.  It stood as a shining example through the generations that we did not have to live as a slave to that way of living.
Now, look at that cross hanging around your neck, or the magnet on your car.  Does it take on new meaning to you?  Are we living in a way that continues the confrontational work of the cross?  Jesus said be kind to everyone.  If someone wrongs you, pray for them.  How are we doing with that?  Are we helping people that seem helpless?   Do the things that break Jesus' heart, break our's?
Please, do not get the wrong idea.  I encourage you to repent from anything that the Holy Spirit convicts you of.  He knows your inner most parts.  However, God forgives you because of the cross, not because of what you're doing at the foot of it.
Finally, please do not think that you need to be offensive to people, but better yet a way of life.  There are people dying to hear that there is a better life.  They are begging to hear that there is a life that can be lived that is contrary to what the world teaches.  They are dying to hear the message of the offensive cross.

Grace and Peace be with you ALWAYS!!!