Consider the Cross

And He, bearing His cross . . .  (John 19:17, NKJV) 

Van Morris writes about the tragic event in 2008 at the famous Taj Mahal Palace in India and how it illustrates for us a certain aspect of Christ’s death on the cross for us:

On November 26, 2008, a gang of terrorists stormed the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai, India. After the carnage had left 200 people dead, a reporter interviewed a guest who had been at the hotel for dinner that night. The guest described how he and his friends were eating dinner when they heard gunshots. Someone grabbed him and pulled him under the table. The assassins came striding through the restaurant, shooting at will, until everyone (or so they thought) had been killed. Miraculously, this man survived. When the interviewer asked the guest how he lived when everyone else at his table had been killed, he replied, "I suppose because I was covered in someone else's blood, and they took me for dead."

Are you covered in Someone Else’s blood, in the blood of the Lamb?  John exclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).  The only way the Lamb of God could take away your sin would be to die—as your sacrifice on the cross!  Does the cross move you to worship?  Charles Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, once wrote: “Stand at the foot of the cross, and count the purple drops by which you have been cleansed: See the thorn-crown; mark His scourged shoulders, still gushing with [an] encrimsoned [flow]. . . .  And if you do not [fall] prostrate on the ground before that cross, you have never seen it.”  When you find yourself chilled by discouragement and doubt, consider the cross.  When anxiety threatens to choke your faith, consider the cross.  When numbing indifference creeps over your soul, consider the cross.  Jesus didn’t just bear His cross; He bore His cross for you.  You’re really alive because of Someone Else’s blood.