Day 215 - Contemplate the Cross

365 daily emails to help you through the grieving process Grief support groups: Click here to find a GriefShare group near you. If you would like to find a group for a friend or relative, try our Search Page. Want to read ahead or resend a previous daily email? Click Here Contemplate the Cross Day 215 "The clearest demonstration of the love of God is the cross," says Dr. Larry Crabb. "Without an understanding of the cross, you're never going to get God's love clear in your mind. Do you feel unlovable? Have people turned away from you in your grief? Has anyone glibly offered to pray for you or shared Scripture with you without really taking time to listen to you? Have you heard the story of what Jesus did on the cross, but do not feel it personally? Instead of focusing on how inadequate other people are at expressing their love for you, direct your attention to the cross of Christ. Take time to listen to its message of love. Crabb continues, "This hanging on the cross is the richest, clearest, most convincing demonstration of God's love. Without contemplating the cross and looking at it, Christians, you draw the wrong conclusions sometimes." Direct your attention to the cross at Calvary. Here is where you are reconciled to God, where you receive the fullness of Christ through His shed blood. If you continued to direct your focus to the cross throughout this day, the next day, and the days after that, you would know without a doubt His love for you. You would begin to live your life on a higher plane. "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [Jesus Christ], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross" (Colossians 1:19-20). Loving God, the Bible says that it was Your pleasure to reconcile me to You through this amazing sacrifice on the cross. Help me to focus on the cross and to understand the intense personal significance that I will find there. Amen. Through a Season of Grief The daily email messages you are receiving are also available in a book format. Purchase as a gift for a friend or buy a print copy for yourself. Through a Season of Grief by Bill Dunn and Kathy Leonard is available at online and local bookstores or at griefshare.org/devotional. If you would like to recommend these daily emails to a friend, please click here and choose one of the options under Share. For more information about GriefShare, including how to sign up for these daily emails, please click here. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2003-2013 by The Church Initiative, Inc., All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without explicit permission in writing from Church Initiative. You subscribed to this daily email through www.griefshare.org. We value your privacy! We will never give, sell, rent, or otherwise share your email or personal information with any other organization — EVER. To remove this email address from further mailings Click Here while connected to the internet. If you have any problems or concerns, please contact dailyemailsupport@griefshare.org. GriefShare 250 S. Allen Rd. Wake Forest, NC 27587 (800) 395-5755