1Cor 1:18,19

18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
19 For it is written: “ I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”

Here we read that the message of the cross is utter foolishness to those who perish.

But to us it is of utmost importance, and the power of God. Even before the world was created Jesus was already the slain Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world (Rev 13:8). God could already see Adam and Eve and their sin (and you and I), and knew that only the death of His Son could save us.

The cross should be absolutely central to your life. If the cross of Christ is not the power of God to you, you are part of the perishing.

To many people the cross of Christ is no real meaning. They care about what they will wear, eat, drink, the car they must drive, to whom they will get married and the pleasures of this world. They are on their way to hell, even if they are called Christians.

Others feel very uncomfortable when the cross of Christ is spoken about. Why? Because they are enemies of His cross and His cross is an enemy to them.

It's amazing how the cross means nothing to many so-called Christians, but the enemies of the cross abhor, hate and fear it. At least they have some passion about it. How is it even possible to be neutral and feelingless about our Lord's crucifixion?

The enemies of the cross are driven to an insane rage against the cross. Why do the enemies of the cross hate it with such fury? I remember being shown around a new palace of the previous dictator of Rumania. Ceausecu and his wife were busy building a palace with about 40 halls but they were exexuted before its completion. We were informed that through some "mishap" there was a shadow of a cross cast on one of the walls when the sun reached a certain place. Nicolae's wife, Elena, was so infuriated by the cross that she demanded it be removed. In East Berlin there was a similar incident when a huge tower was built by the communists. Somehow, when the sun shone there was a huge cross. Nothing could remove it. (Read more here)

The Bible says that when Jesus died He took all of your sin to Himself on the cross, and so He conquered sin and the devil's power forever on the cross. Whenever you see the cross you should realize that He was bruised, crushed and died for our iniquities. Is 53:5, "But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed."

If the cross has worked in your life it changes your life. You're bluffing yourself when you claim that you have experienced the cross but you're still living in sin. You cannot enjoy the love of Jesus and enjoy sin. The two are mutually exclusive.

There is no power like the power of God in the cross of Christ to change a life. There is nothing else that can save a person from sin, but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is why Paul speaks about the "word of the cross", the Gospel, of which he is "not ashamed".

Can you stand up and testify that you were set free from sin by the power of the cross? Once you lived in specific sins, but today are free from them?

You who are in bondage to sin - for Jesus said he who sins is a slave of sin - come to the cross of Jesus for deliverance.

Notes & extras:

photos of the `Fernsehturm' in East Berlin

See extract from a speech by Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate, West Berlin, Germany June 12, 1987: This speech was delivered to the people of West Berlin, yet it was also audible on the East side of the Berlin wall. "The totalitarian world finds even symbols of love and of worship an affront. Years ago, before the East Germans began rebuilding their churches, they erected a secular structure: the television tower at Alexander Platz. Virtually ever since, the authorities have been working to correct what they view as the tower's one major flaw, treating the glass sphere at the top with paints and chemicals of every kind. Yet even today when the sun strikes that sphere--that sphere that towers over all Berlin--the light makes the sign of the cross. There in Berlin, like the city itself, symbols of love, symbols of worship, cannot be suppressed." (copy of the full speech here)

(For more on Ceausecu click here)