Jesus is Stripped and Nailed to the Cross

Over the last two Sundays we have seen Jesus stripped and nailed to the cross. Although Jesus was stripped of his clothes physically, we also see that Jesus emptied himself voluntarily, not considering his divine status as something to use to his own advantage. And so...Jesus was nailed to the cross.

We look at the cross and we can see one of two things. We can either see a man who was a liar and a failure, or we can see the Son of God who spoke truth and accomplished his purpose. And what was that purpose? Freedom! But the freedom Jesus came to bring about went beyond the scope of overthrowing the Roman empire, like the other Jewish freedom fighters that had come before and after him. Jesus had an eternal perspective, a spiritual perspective. Jesus was a freedom fighter, but unlike the others, he was fighting a spiritual battle.

The people taunted Jesus while he was on the cross. They told him to save himself and come down from the cross if he was who he said he was. But if Jesus would have come down from the cross, then Satan would have won. If Jesus came down from the cross, he wouldn't have been any different than the other freedom fighters before him. So Jesus stayed on the cross, knowing that he was not fighting for freedom from the Roman Empire, but for the freedom of your soul and mine.

On the cross Jesus took our sins and our death, the two things that Satan had over us. But staying on the cross meant victory over sin and victory over death, and ultimately victory over Satan. So it is when we come to the cross, die to ourselves, and let Jesus in to be Lord, then we find breakthrough and healing and forgiveness in our lives. When we come to Jesus we are saved, and as we commit with all we are to following Jesus, daily dying to ourselves and walking with him, then we begin to have victory. In all this we can be confident that he who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion.

Those nails might have been the weapons people used to stop who they thought was another political and social nuisance, but when we get an eternal perspective, a spiritual perspective, we see that those nails were the weapons Jesus used to defeat Satan and set us free to experience forgiveness, peace, love, joy, breakthrough and healing in our lives.

Praise God!

See you all next week at the Gathering.

Blessings,

-Tim