The Seven Words of the Cross #7

“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit (Lk.23:46).”

 Here is where context pictures the final blow. There are seven particulars:

 1.It was now about the sixth hour (apprx.3p.m.).…

The Seven Words of the Cross #6

 “It is finished (John 19:30).”

 If you want to understand understand these last words, you have to look at them in the context of Jesus’ mission as He saw it. "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work (John 4:34)."…

The Seven Words of the Cross #5

 Jn.19:28 " I thirst."

 Two simple words, yet they are spoken in a spiritual context. That is what all Jesus’ words from the Cross convey and that's what makes the details significant. So, what was going on here? When the…

The Seven Words of the Cross #4

 “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt.27:46, Mk.15:34)

 If ever there was a moment of complete lostness, isolation and the aloneness into which we are born, it was this moment of Jesus’ cry to His Father. If anything, it may be for each human being, the most important of the seven words He utters in the midst of His suffering…

The Seven Words of the Cross #3 

Jn.19:26-27 “Dear woman, here is your son” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.”

 There is a lot of speculation about these words. Was Jesus elevating Mary to a position of worship or was He simply turning her care over to John? The in-between assumptions vary. In the Greek text here and in Chapter 2 at the wedding feast, He addressed…

The Seven Words of the Cross #2

 “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise (Lk.23:43).”

 The word Jesus uses here for the phrase, “I tell you the truth” is one simple word, amen. It is the Hebrew word written in Greek which is pronounced the same as the word we use to conclude a prayer as if to say, ‘I agree.’ But used here by Jesus it has a…

The Seven Words from the Cross, #1

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).”

 First, Jesus says, forgive them. Who is ‘them’? The leaders who conspired, the people in the crowd that shouted for His crucifixion, the disciples, the large group of people who did not want to get involved, those who couldn’t have…

Jumping to Conclusions

 I was about to write an article about jumping to conclusions when I saw a letter to the editor in a local paper entitled “Millennials should be heard, not judged.” Instead of continuing, it struck me that that title was, in itself, a conclusion, a false conclusion, that there are such things as millennials. The writer was right in his ongoing statement…

Tribulation; You’re In It.

 “If only I hadn’t put my hand on the hot pot handle, ouch, it really does smart.” I think we’ve all done that at one time or another. How about these: “I don’t understand why that happened, I didn’t plan for it to happen. I was playing ball and whatever spurred me to jump in that direction, I don’t know, but my ankle snapped, and this is why the cast.”…

The Holy Spirit

 There are basic premises we work on when we are disciples of Jesus:

 “God is spirit…(Jn.4:24).” What does that say about us? We are images of God (Gen.1:26). We have a mind, a heart and a spirit. Therefore:

 First, we know that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience, Jesus being the definitive expression.

 Second, 100% of everything we do is based on what we can’t see. “So, we fix…

The Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6)

When Jesus spoke these words describing Himself, it was these three words that put us in an entirely different dimension, a spiritual dimension. Those three words have a deep and penetrating significance. They describe the personal and relational structure of all existence, namely the Lord God. He is a Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We’ll get into…