- araratchurch
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
“The passage of Scripture he had been reading was this: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter. And as a lamb is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. He was humiliated and received no justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.” The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, was the prophet talking about himself or someone else?””
Acts 8:32-34 NLT
I was in fourth or fifth grade and we were outside on the playground playing softball (as an aside, back then there was very little supervision of recess yard activities). Taking my turn at bat, having swung at the ball, I let go of the bat which hit a nearby metal building, causing the bat to bounce back and hit one of my best friends in the head. Now, she did not lose consciousness; but she immediately sported a big “egg” sticking out on her forehead.
I can still remember how devastated I felt, knowing that I had done this to her. In fact, I was so far beyond consolation, that (sadly) she ended up trying to comfort me.
Why was I so bereaved? Because this was my fault. In this scenario—although I felt very sorry that she must suffer—my primary response was that of the guilt and remorse of knowing I had done this to her. Making it worse, I didn’t know any way to make it right. Saying I was sorry, asking for forgiveness, just didn’t seem to be enough.
Now, many well-meaning ministers, in describing the death of Jesus Christ, seem to be aiming at provoking sympathy for the Lord. However, a while back the Lord instructed me that He is not looking for sympathy. He is King of kings and Lord of lords and does not need, or want, our sympathy. What the vision of His suffering should provoke, is what I experienced having been responsible for hurting my dear friend’s head: extreme guilt and remorse, and ultimately, repentance. And praise be to God, He accepts our remorse, our repentance; it is enough.
“He personally carried our sins in His body on the cross [willingly offering Himself on it, as on an altar of sacrifice], so that we might die to sin [becoming immune from the penalty and power of sin] and live for righteousness; for by His wounds you [who believe] have been healed.”
1 Peter 2:24 AMP
As we shared yesterday, there are some truths we must grasp as we look at our Lord, in order to truly see and know Him, and come to a full understanding of what He has done for us.
The first of those truths we consider today:
When we see our suffering Lord, we must know that He is suffering for our sin. We are responsible for His suffering. That suffering should have been mine!
Now obviously, as the Creator of the universe, no one made Him suffer; He chose to suffer, as it was the only way for our salvation.
In our opening scripture, we see that the Ethiopian eunuch is asking Philip who was being referenced in the scripture about the lamb to the slaughter. This, of course, is from Isaiah 53, giving a prophetic picture of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as the “Suffering Servant.” Indeed, it is this very passage that renders one of our most beloved scriptures:
“But [in fact] He has borne our griefs, And He has carried our sorrows and pains; Yet we [ignorantly] assumed that He was stricken, Struck down by God and degraded and humiliated [by Him]. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was crushed for our wickedness [our sin, our injustice, our wrongdoing]; The punishment [required] for our well-being fell on Him, And by His stripes (wounds) we are healed.”
Isaiah 53:4-5 AMP
Yes, in order to rightly see our Lord, and understand what He did for us, we must see that He suffered for OUR sins. You see, our sin made us worthy of punishment, the ultimate punishment: death.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 6:23 NKJV
Soon after His resurrection, the Lord appeared to the disciples and instructed them to look at His hands and feet (Luke 24). The point He was making was that He had truly returned from the dead and was flesh and blood, not a spirit.
When we consider the piercing in the Lord’s hands and feet, we must see that He—in the flesh—suffered for our sins. The crown of thorns pressed into His precious head, should have marred our head. The spear in His side, should have plunged into our side. The horrific Roman beating to which He was subjected, should have been our beating.
Ownership of the Lord’s suffering (in terms of causality), is the first step toward seeing Him clearly and understanding what a terrible price was required to buy our pardon. As the Lord expressed to me several years ago, “In order to have a Savior, you must know you need one.”
Indeed, the end of days (in terms of the fallen world system), will be triggered by the Jewish people seeing and crying out to the One they now realize was pierced at their own hand.
“Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem. They will look on me whom they have pierced and mourn for him as for an only son. They will grieve bitterly for him as for a firstborn son who has died. The sorrow and mourning in Jerusalem on that day will be like the great mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the valley of Megiddo.”
Zechariah 12:10-11 NLT
If you are suffering today, look at Him, willingly suffering on the cross for your sin, for your peace, for your healing. Let His suffering, eclipse whatever you are feeling, and let that ultimately lead you to the relief and deliverance only He can give. He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. And that made all the difference.
Next time, we continue to consider our Lord, looking for all the truth that sets us free.
Peace to you.
Jesus is coming! Get ready for Him!
- araratchurch
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
“Pilate went out again and said to them, "See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him." So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, "Behold the man!"”
John 19:4-5 ESV
Let us begin our word for today by considering a couple of familiar scenarios.
Have you ever been in a relationship with a person for a long time, yet came to realize that you did not really know who they were? There are many complex reasons this can happen. But, for our purposes, let it suffice to say that whether a person has a secret life into which we never entered, or they changed from who they once were, and we did not follow that process, or we saw them through a “lens” we developed early on, never allowing consideration of any evidence to the contrary, that person we think we know, may actually be a “stranger” to us.
Another scenario for our consideration is the phenomenon of feeling as though you know someone, although you have only observed them from a distance without any true personal interaction.
One of these situations we see is the phenomenon of thinking you “know” an actor or actress well because you have seen many of their movies or studied their lives by way of media. However, the person we think they are, may be very different from who they really are.
Now, how do these scenarios fit in with what the Lord would have us know about knowing Him?
In order to truly know the Lord, we must not allow our false assumptions, or neglect concerning our seeking of Him, make us think we know Him when we do not. Indeed, Jesus warned that there are some people who think they know Him, think they are in a relationship with Him, who are not.
““Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’”
Matthew 7:21-23 NLT
In this scenario presented by Jesus, these people apparently routinely broke God‘s laws, clearly indicating they thought that He would not notice, or they were willingly ignorant of His commands. Sadly, their disobedience indicated that they didn’t know Him, and He did not know them (in terms of having an actual relationship).
In our opening scripture, we see that Pilate presents Jesus to the Jews, telling them to look at Him. His purpose for doing so was in order for them to rightly determine what should be done to Him.
Now, when a person hears about the Lord, whether they know it or not, our Lord is being presented to them in order that they can determine what they will do with Him. But even after salvation, the invitation is ongoing to truly look at Him. Our response to the invitation to look at our Savior, and our resulting reactions to what we see, will determine whether or not we truly know Him.
There are some truths we must know as we look at our Lord in order to truly see and know Him. We will begin our consideration of those truths next time.
Peace to you.
Jesus is coming! Get ready for Him!
- araratchurch
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
“We have therefore been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory and power of the Father, we too might walk habitually in newness of life [abandoning our old ways].”
Romans 6:4 AMP
We have recently celebrated Resurrection Sunday. So, I guess we’re done with talking about resurrection until next year, right?
Now, if you are basically any kind of Christian, your answer to that question might be: “Of course not!” But we should ask ourselves this question: “What difference has the work of Jesus Christ made in the way I am living?” Sadly, for many Christians the answer to that question would basically be things like: “I try not to curse as much anymore;” or, “I try to be faithful to my spouse;” or, “I try to do good things.” And, whereas those types of differences are not to be dismissed as unimportant, those types of things all have to do with “doing,” rather than “being,” and therefore, fall short of being representative of what the work of Jesus Christ has done for us. And—that being the case—these attempts at “doing” differently, without “being” different, usually extinguish, and we find ourselves, not only doing what we used to do, but possibly doing even worse, and feeling like a total failure.
At the point of crisis of meaning in the Christian walk, some people decide that Christianity does not meet its promises. Or, others may decide that the Christian walk is just not for them. The tragedy in all that (of course, secondary to the consequences of turning one’s back on the Lord), is the fact that we may be passing judgment on something, on Someone, we have never really experienced.
Eternity is a long time; therefore, being able to be made right with God through Jesus Christ so that we can spend eternity with Him, is not to be underestimated. But the fact remains, that is just the glorious beginning of the difference the work of Jesus Christ has made possible in our lives.
Let me first of all point out a difference between two resurrections:
When we think of the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus, we can see and know what a sign and wonder it is to bring someone back from the dead who has been dead for four days. But as marvelous of a miracle this was, when Lazarus was brought back from the dead, he was brought back to being who he was before his death and resurrection experience. That is to say, he was brought back to the same life he had before he was dead. As well, he would have to again experience death at some point.
Now, being raised to new life through Jesus Christ, is not meant to provide a new lease on life, or even a new approach to our life. What the word of God tells us about the resurrection life made possible through Jesus’ resurrection, is that we are raised to a totally new kind of life. Indeed, by identifying with Jesus’ death (illustrated in baptism), we can be raised to the resurrected life of Jesus Christ. As well, we need never die again. We need never return to our old life, ruled by the power of sin, doomed to repeat our failures over and over again, headed for a certain destruction, after a long, miserable, downward spiral, into the same.
In our opening scripture, we see that the work of Jesus Christ has truly made it possible to walk in newness of life. That is, His resurrection creates a way for us to have a new, an entirely new, entirely different, type of life.
Lord willing, over the next few days, we will go back to the basics to determine whether or not we are truly walking in a relationship with Jesus Christ, whether or not we truly understand what God has done for us through the work of Jesus. After all, if that is not the case, living His resurrected life, walking in the newness of that resurrected life, is impossible.
Peace to you.
Jesus is coming! Get ready for Him!