It Was All For You

Good morning! This week many churches celebrate a variety of activities for Holy Week. I hope that as you participate in this time of reflection, you would truly grasp the personal nature of Jesus’ sacrifice for you.

It is with this thought that I bring you this morning’s encouragement. Today as a background verse I want us to look at Isaiah 53:4-6:

Isaiah 53:4-6 (NLT)
Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins! [5] But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed! [6] All of us have strayed away like sheep. We have left God's paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the guilt and sins of us all.

During this week it is easy to take God’s grace for granted. We find ourselves getting wrapped up in the purchasing of a new Easter dress or hiding eggs for an Easter egg hunt and somehow the reflection upon the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord slips by without much thought.

This morning I want to bring your attention to the personal nature of Jesus sacrifice. Notice in verse 4 that it was “our” weaknesses he carried and it was “our” sorrows that weighed him down. Jesus bore your burdens. He carried a weight that was not his, but instead he chose to offer himself as a substitutionary sacrifice for you.

Verse 5 reminds us that Jesus was wounded and crushed for our sins. It was his body broken for you that provides you peace and healing. It is so easy to read these verses and gloss over the whole picture. For those of you who saw the movie “The Passion of the Christ” a few years ago, you probably came away with a new appreciation of the brutality that Jesus endured. I hope when you read this you come away with something else, a new appreciation of the ugliness of sin. Each scourge of the whip representing the ugly toll that sin takes upon our soul.

Verse 6 points out the sinful condition of human behavior. Every single one of us has strayed away from God’s standard. All of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, but God laid our iniquity upon Jesus. Our guilt, our shame, our punishment was transferred to our precious Lord.

This week take a few moments and find a place of solitude and silence. Thank God for his love for you. Thank him for the precious gift of Jesus. Acknowledge that it is only by the blood of Jesus that your sin has been forgiven and thank him for his cleansing.

Until next Monday, may God’s richest blessings be yours this week.

Carl