On Sunday 23rd April, the preacher was allowed to choose a subject but I decided to go with the theme that the home groups were doing - the significance of the Cross and the reading that I chose were:- Luke 23:32-39; John 19:23-27. I have a very real concern that we would allow Jesus' attitude during the last week of his life to fade very quickly from our hearts if we did not take the core truths of the Kingdom of God that unfolded through Jesus' life, as he walked that road to Calvary and to allow them to grow in our hearts. So we looked at 2 of the 7 “words” or phrases spoken by Jesus from the cross.
Firstly: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” Perhaps we do realise what they were doing – they were busy with things that we world is still busy with even now – greed, fear, cruelty, hyped-up mob reactions. We are good at calling good evil and evil good to suit ourselves. But what was Jesus doing – He continued to live a life of love – as Peter Storey says in his book ‘Listening at Golgotha’ – “there is a special wholeness when a person’s words, thoughts and actions all speak the same language.” Jesus lived out the word love. The good news is that when we allow Jesus’ words of forgiveness to penetrate right down to our own failure and sin, we too will find a new wholeness and then the light of Jesus, love will shine through us and through the lives of others. Look at the life of Stephen in Acts, chapter 6.
Secondly: Jesus longs for us to know that we belong to each other, that everyone is welcome in the Kingdom of God and that we should see each other as a gift and see ourselves as a gift to the community. Any comments on this?
I so enjoyed the message that we should see ourselves as a gift to others and the community in which we live; how often do we fail to think of ourselves as having any worth to others or as being valuable in blessing the lives of others? Jesus wants us to love who we are and to live out His love to those around us.
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