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Cross
In plain words
The wooden execution post where Jesus died, taking the punishment for our sins in our place.
In Roman times, the cross was the cruelest and most shameful way to execute someone. Jesus died on one, outside Jerusalem. Christians wear crosses not because they like suffering, but because something happened there that changed everything. Peter writes that Jesus carried our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for what is right (1 Peter 2:24).
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To many people the message of the cross sounds foolish, but to those being saved it is God's power (1 Corinthians 1:18). On the cross God cancelled the record of debt that stood against us (Colossians 2:13-14). Jesus also says that following Him means taking up your cross daily (Luke 9:23). That is not about earning anything. It means saying no to yourself and yes to Him, every day.
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Greek stauros meant an upright stake, often with a crossbeam. The Old Testament sacrifices, the Passover lamb and the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 all point toward it. Paul says he will boast only in the cross (Galatians 6:14). Christians agree Jesus died for our sins, though they use different pictures to explain how, such as substitution, victory over evil and ransom, and weigh them differently.
My verses
He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. “By His stripes you are healed.”
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.
When you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our trespasses, having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross!
Then Jesus said to all of them, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.
But as for me, may I never boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.