Words From the Cross: Forgive Them

Famous last words! Collections of the last words famous people spoke are available. We are trying to listen to Jesus’ voice this year, pointing the way to go. What were Jesus’ last words? The gospel writers have given us seven sayiings of Jesus on the cross. Today we begin to listen to the crucified Savior on a crimson cross. What was his first recorded word on the cross? Father forgive them. As we return to the Lord’s Supper table, we remember his words and his sacrifice. Will we put his words into practice? Message based on Luke 23:32-38.

Quotes:
Frederick Faber:
Seven times he spake,
seven words of love
All three hours his silence cried
For mercy on the souls of men
Jesus our Lord was crucified.

Karl Barth: Every day, we ought to begin, we may begin with: I believe in the forgiveness of sins. 

2 Corinthians 5:21: God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us so that through him we might become the righteousness of God . . .

Paul E. Hoffman: To repent means to “turn around.”

Oswald Chambers: We trample the blood of the Son of God if we think we are forgiven because we are sorry for our sins. The only explanation for the forgiveness of God and for the unfathomable depth of His forgetting is the death of Jesus Christ. Our repentance is merely the outcome of our personal realization of the atonement which He has worked out for us. It does not matter who or what we are; there is absolute reinstatement into God by the death of Jesus Christ and by no other way, not because Jesus Christ pleads, but because He died. It is not earned, but accepted.

Marghanita Laski: What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me.

Ephesians 4:32: Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you. 

Miroslav Volf: To triumph fully, evil needs two victories, not one. The first victory happens when an evil deed is perpetrated; the second victory, when evil is returned. After the first victory, evil would die if the second victory did not infuse it with new life.

Victoria Ruvolo: There is no room for vengeance in my life, and I do not believe a long, hard prison term would do you, me, or society any good.

C. S. Lewis: To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.

Lewis Smedes: To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.

#forgiveness #Jesus #crucifixion #transformation

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