E82 - Hope’s Harbor Gritty Bible Devotions - What Happened at the Cross? 2 of 2
Hope’s Harbor
Gritty Bible Devotions
Episode #82
Title: What happened at the Cross when Jesus died? Part 2 0f 2
Date: November 28, 2022
Contact: info@hopesharbor.net
Key verse(s): There are 4 key verses:
Colossians 1:13 -14 / ‘He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
Colossians 1:14 – ‘in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
Eph 3:11 - 12 according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,
Eph 3:12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.
Intro: This episode continues a look at the events surrounding the death of Jesus on a Roman cross and how He secured our salvation from GOD’s wrath through the forgiveness of sin… by His shed blood.
And more than this, as wonderful as it is to be safe in GOD’s forgiving love after we go to Him asking for His pardon based on our belief Jesus died for us, there is more to the new spiritual life we now have, before we get to Heaven.
We have the life of Jesus in us by His Holy Spirit living within us and sealing us unto the day we are redeemed from this life when we die, and taken in an instant to be with the Lord.
Devotion focus:
This pardon was made possible when Jesus atoned for our sins. This means He paid the penalty. The price He paid to make atonement for our sins was His life.
· [So He gave His life for us and if we trust that truth and ask GOD to apply the atonement to our personal sins, Jesus then gives us His life, His eternal life, at the instant we pray in faith. Now, this level of faith reveals its sincerity by our changed life afterward as we grow in knowledge and application of Jesus’s commands found in Scripture.]
Listen to Romans 6:4 – ‘Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.’
Buried in this verse can mean ‘to assimilate spiritually to Christ.’
The Greek ‘newness of life’ in Romans 6:4 in is a similar word to ‘renewing the mind’ in Romans 12:2 – ‘And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.’
Think of it this way: Romans 6:4 tells us what to do as an invitation and Romans 12:2 tells us how to do it, by renewing the way we think. And we do this by reading and studying the Bible daily. It’s that simple and difficult!
These verses are necessary to understand in order for us to grasp the proclamation of Jesus in John 10:10 – and I’m going to paraphrase it “…I have come that you may have life and that you may have it more abundantly.”
Yes, sin must be atoned for and Jesus did this once and for all when He gave up His life. But our new birth upon acting upon the forgiveness offered is but a gateway, albeit an almighty eternal gift, but it is a passage into a different kind of life than the one lived before being born again.
The Son of GOD died so we could rejoin Him in friendship, fellowship, relationship, love, and life. If we will seek to experience this reunion through love for GOD, only then will we understand and serve Him correctly. Not in ritualistic rules of religion, but rather serve Him because we love Him and then love others because of His love for them. And I mean love if only through prayer for the worse human beings imaginable. Jesus died for them too.
Just so you know, the only reason I may not have been one of the worst men to ever live is only that by His grace. He kept me from living from the depth of my sin. I am convinced I was spared that horror because of the prayers of my Grandmother.
Summary: Jesus’s death was the turning point in human history. But it didn’t stop there. By His resurrection, we too will resurrect from the grave.
(Romans 1:4 – ‘…and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.’ Philippians 3:10 – ‘…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death…’)
Although before the day of our personal resurrection we have access now to His resurrection power through prayer. This gives us the ability to live above the debilitating sorrowfulness of life here and now, even though surrounded by grief and sadness at times.
Action to consider: Seek to fully understand all that transpired the day Jesus died on the cross. When you come to see clearly what He accomplished and how it can be yours, hope should flood your soul.
Next week’s devotion: Marriage - The differences between men and women and how it affects relationships