The Beauty of the Cross

By Dale A. Jennings – 12/18/2018

There is a saying that I am sure all of you know quite well.  “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!”  And with the title of the devotion today you may be using that statement.  Look at this picture.  What do you see?

You may be saying, “I see pain, agony and death.”  But beauty?  Therein lays the beauty of the cross of Jesus Christ.  The pain, agony and death that you see was ours to bear.  But Jesus, the Son of God, took that upon himself so that we may have salvation and to live a life of righteousness.

1 Peter 2:24 – He (Jesus) himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.  By his wounds you have been healed.

See the beauty?  We will die to sin and live to righteousness.  Not live however we want but to live for him that bore the sin.  The beauty that is there for us to be obedient to the Lord. The most beautiful person in the entire world took on the ugliest part of all of us. Yes, in its pain, agony and death there lies the beauty.  The beauty that God loves us so much, that he butchered his own son to pay the wages of our sin that we should have paid.  

We live in and through that beauty.  In Galatians 6:14 the Apostle Paul writes – But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

The Apostle Paul also wrote to the Philippians these words: Philippians 3:7-8 – ⁷But whatever gain I had I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  ⁸Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.

It is through the cross that we lose ourselves but gain everything.  The beauty in that we don’t have to find our identity in ourselves, the world, money, fame or pleasure. But we truly find our identity in the fact that we can know God.   We can know God in his omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, holiness, justice, wrath and love.  We can glory in and we can behold the beauty of God’s attributes as we look to the Cross. 

Jeremiah 9:23 says: Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches.  But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight, declares the Lord.

I leave you with these words from a wonderful hymn by Isaac Watts: When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.

When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of Glory died. My richest gain I count but loss. And pour contempt on all my pride.

Will you step back today and survey that wondrous cross and see the beauty that transforms lives. 

In Christ Alone,

Dale