The Meaning of the Cross, Day 19

Welcome to Day 19 of our series, 40 Days of the Cross. Each day we are taking just a few minutes to look at a word which will help us better understand the meaning of the cross. 

Today’s word is hope. Six hundred years before Jesus died on the cross, the prophet Jeremiah declared that God had a plan for our lives that would bring us hope. In Jeremiah 29:11, God speaks through the prophet Jeremiah and says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for peace and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” God already knew the plans He had for the people of Israel, and for every person who would hear His call. That plan would give them a future, and give them hope. 

The Bible says that the plan of God for Jesus to be crucified on the cross was planned from the foundation of the world. It is the plan of the cross that gives us hope! But what is that hope? 

There is hope for the removal of our sins. Every one of us was born with a predilection towards sin. Pride, selfishness, greed and lust are all things we have to deal with because there is an essential nature within us that leans towards sin. Try as we might, we can’t remove these sins ourselves. But on the cross, Jesus took the punishment for our sins so that God will forgive our sins and cleanse us from the results of that sinful nature. 

There is hope for restored relationship with God. Our sin had separated us from God. God is holy and cannot allow sin into His presence. But when we come to Him with repentance, our sins are forgiven because of the death of Jesus on the cross. So, God looks at us as pure and holy and we can have a relationship with Him. 

Because of the cross, there is also hope for the future. God said that He would give us a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11). We know that, as much as we enjoy His presence now, there is an eternity waiting for us where we will be with God face to face, and we are able to hope for this because God sacrificed Himself upon the cross. 

All of this hope is ours because Jesus paid His life as a ransom for us on the cross. We’ll talk more about the word ransom tomorrow. 

After we pray today, I encourage you to take some time to meditate on how Jesus’ death on the cross gives us hope.
 

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the cross which gives us hope. You give us hope for today as well as hope for the future. Help us to have the courage, through Your Spirit, to share that hope with others so that they too see the hope of the cross. In the name of Your Son, Jesus, Amen. 

Continued tomorrow