AN OFFENSE OF THE CROSS
BY
James Reid Ross

I get kind of excited by hurricanes we have quite a few here in NC, of course the last few years of Daddy’s life we lived through quite a few and a big snow and ice storm.  This one particularly was last year I forget the name although I am sure Katie knows it because of the damage done to Virginia. As with most hurricanes you just don’t know where it will go it could have come through here and done the damage it did in Virginia but we just had some high winds, a few limbs down nothing more.

  I rode around after it was over to check on things everything all right so I went to work the next morning.  It was the topic of conversation around the water cooler or better-put coffee pot at our workplace.  One of the owners wasn’t there he had a lot of limbs down at his house so we carried on.   It was a Friday but the office closed at 5:00 pm.  About 2:30 I started making excuses to leave gave my supervisor Randy a couple of false reasons (lies) why I had to go home to check on things.  I knew everything was alright but sometimes when you start with a lie you go though with the plan just to try and make it not a lie, so I left to go home to do the things I said I needed to do that I knew I didn’t have to do but I was going to do them just to make my lies less of a lie.  

Let me say that the members of the firm I gave my reasons to had shown me nothing but respect which goes to a good name which God’s word say is more valuable than gold. 

A couple of miles from the office heading down the freeway, I guess I had that feeling you had as a kid when you got away with something but knew you were at fault.  All of a sudden I felt the presence of what I would describe as that of my Heavenly Father and what I experienced from him was the “Sorrow of the Cross”, His sorrow it was as if I was looking at His Son hanging there on the cross.  Sobs came from body and tears flowed from my eyes.  Why was Almighty God reaching down from heaven to James Reid Ross driving home from work on a Friday afternoon?  Because I had offended Him I had transgressed.  Let me not minimized the presence of God in that car he was there with me. Had I felt to full force of His sorrow I think I would have perished, my life force vaporized.

Some one said that what I had done was insignificant.  WAS IT?  I value myself a Christian.  I am a representative of the Price paid on the Cross. What was God saying, NO sin is insignificant all transgression are Offences of the Cross, they all nailed Him there. 

God be merciful to me a sinner as the publican said.  I am thankful I have a Saviour.

I share this because its something most people do, just the little things that may be as damning as the big things.                              

 God Bless  Love JRR