The Apostle Paul, wrote in the sixth chapter of Galatians, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul said, “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.”
There is great benefit in focusing on the cross where Jesus died for us. Jesus told Nicodemus in John chapter 3, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Just as the children of Israel who looked to the bronze serpent on a pole were saved from the poisonous snakes, we are saved as we look upon the cross where Jesus died to deliver us from our sins.
I highly recommend reading the four gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Pay particularly close attention to the end of those books, reading the four different eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ suffering under Pontius Pilate, His agonizing time on the cross between two thieves, and His resurrection from the dead. It is the power of the cross and the power of Jesus’ resurrection that will deliver you from the enslavement of transgenderism and all your other sins. Paul said in Galatians chapter two, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
In Romans 6, Paul said, “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.”
Two books that I highly recommend in the study of the cross of Christ are:
- The Seven Sayings of the Savior on the Cross, Arthur W. Pink, Baker Books, 2005.
- The Resurrection of the Shroud, Mark Antonacci, M. Evans and Company, 2000. The Shroud of Turin, understood properly, is not an artifact to be worshipped, but rather a tool to comprehend the horrors that our Lord and Savior suffered for us.