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     I was in the hospital with a bad infection in my leg.  As they treated the infection and worked to control the pain, I was asked this question over and over, “How would you rate your pain?”  When I first went in the numbers were really high, but then they began to come down with only peaks of severe pain.
     Sometimes when we are dealing with extreme pain we used the term “excruciating.”  Finding out the origins of words is interesting to me.  Where did this word come from?  What did it mean when people first started to use it?  How has the meaning of the word changed over time?  When studying the Bible these are important questions because how we may use a word today may not be the same thing God meant when He inspired the Bible to be written.  This is why you should have a good Bible Dictionary in your study library.

     Our word today, “excruciating,” is not used in the Bible, but its meaning is definitely tied to the Bible.  As you look back through the origin of this word, you find such terms as torment and torture.  Then you get to its base origin — ex + crux.  The “ex” here refers to “out of,” showing the source or origin.  The “crux” refers to the Cross.  This is an indication of how painful the death on the Cross was and this is the type of death that Jesus died for all of us.

     Jesus was obedient to His Father.  Philippians 2:8 tells us to what extent, “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  Even to the point of what we still today refer to as “excruciating” pain.
     If Jesus was willing to do that for us, shouldn’t we humble ourselves to God’s will.

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