Get Real November 23 Devotional
November 23, 2024
LUKE 23:32, 43 | 32 Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him.
43 He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
The cross is many things. It is a revolution in our concepts of God, for shame and humiliation must revise our idea of glory. It is a substitution and exchange, where Jesus bears our brokenness in order to give us His goodness. It is also the supreme inspiring example of moral and personal integrity. Jesus taught enemy love and came to befriend sinners, He did so throughout His ministry and even in the throes of an excruciating death, He was helping a criminal.
A sinless man, utterly unique for the purity of His character among all humans, born in any time or place, He met His end between two criminals who were probably slaves. (Crucifixion was imposed most often on slaves who broke the law, sometimes on rebels). For the Romans and their subject peoples, the cross was the worst of all fates, reserved for the scum of the Empire, and it was a tool of intimidation. For Jesus, the horror and shame of it did not alter His intent to heal, help, and save.
How do you define integrity?
