Good (Really GOOD) FRiday

the Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God. - C.S. Lewis

The Blood deals with what we have done, whereas the Cross deals with what we are. The Blood disposes of our sins, while the Cross strikes at the root of our capacity for sin. --Watchman Nee

"Out, damned spot!" That is the true cry of human nature. That stain cannot be removed without blood, and that which is infinitely more, and deeper, and profounder, and more terrible than blood, of which blood is but the symbol - the suffering of Deity.

--G. Campbell Morgan

Today Jesus Christ is being dispatched as the Figurehead of a Religion, a mere example. He is that, but he is infinitely more; He is salvation itself, He is the Gospel of God. --Oswald Chambers

The nature of Christ's salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day evangelist. He announces a Savior from Hell rather than a Savior from sin. And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness. --Arthur W. Pink

The blood of Jesus Christ has great power! There is perhaps not a phrase in the Bible that is so full of secret truth as is "The blood of Jesus." It is the secret of His incarnation, when Jesus took on flesh and blood; the secret of His obedience unto death, when He gave His life at the cross of Calvary; the secret of His love that went beyond all understanding when He bought us with His blood; the secret of the enemy and the secret of our eternal salvation. --Corrie Ten Boom

Christianity is not a formula, but the Person of Jesus Himself. Never think that Christianity is a matter of adjusting behavior, but rather, of letting Christ live through us in His strength and power. --Malcolm Smith

All our salvation consists in the manifestation of the nature, life and spirit of Jesus Christ in our inward new man. This alone is Christian redemption, this alone delivers from the guilt and power of sin, this alone redeems and renews. --William Law

To be crucified means three things. First, the man who is crucified is facing only one direction.... If he hears anything behind him he can't turn around to see what's going on. He has stopped looking back. The crucified man on the cross is looking in only one direction and that is the direction of God and Christ and the Holy Spirit and the direction of the edifying of the church, the direction of sanctification and the direction of the Spirit-filled life..., the fellow going out to die on the cross doesn't say to his wife, "Good-bye, honey. I'll be back shortly after five." When you go out to die on the cross you bid goodbye - you're not going back!

Another thing about the man on the cross,...he has no further plans of his own.... Somebody else made his plans for him, and when they nailed him up there all his plans disappeared. On the way up to the hill he didn't see a friend and say, "Well, Henry, next Saturday about three I'll come by and we'll go fishing up on the lake." He was going out to die and he had no plans at all. --A. W. Tozer

Learn to know Christ and him crucified. Learn to sing to him, and say, "Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin.  You have taken upon yourself what is mine and given me what is yours. You have become what you were not so that I might  become what I was not." --Martin Luther

As you gaze upon the cross, and long for conformity to him, be not weary or fearful because you cannot express in words what you seek. Ask him to plant the cross in your heart. Believe in him, the crucified and now living one, to dwell within you, and breathe his own mind there. --Andrew Murray

The Christian life is not by effort, and not by struggle; not merely by trying to put into practice certain maxims, or by trying to attain to a certain measure; but from beginning to end, and all together, it is a matter of knowing the Lord Jesus within. -- T. Austin-Sparks

From my many years of experience I can unhesitatingly say that the cross bears those who bear the cross. Sadhu Sundar Singh

Union with Christ is really the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation not only in its application but also in its once-for-all accomplishment in the finished work of Christ. Indeed the whole process of salvation has its origin in one phase of union with Christ and salvation has in view the realization of other phases of union with Christ. --John Murray

The believer's death with Christ upon His Cross therefore means being crucified to the world in all its aspects. Not to be a miserable, joyless person, but one filled with the joy and glory of another world. It is not the "cross" that makes us miserable, but the absence of it. It is a delivering Cross - a Cross that liberates you to have the very foretaste of heaven in you, as already sharers of the power of the age to come.... Glory to God for the Cross that severs us from the world, and the world- spirit, and makes a way for us into another world where all is peace and joy and love. --Jessie Penn-Lewis