A Life Worthy

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?  (Romans 8:35)

In answer to the above question:

No one.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

Happy Friday, Beloved.

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?  It is God who justifies.  Who is he that condemns? (Romans 8:33-34a).

Usually it’s me.

For the most part, I am the one who brings charges against me; I am the one who condemns.  You see, I have lots of inside information that I can use—I am an expert witness against myself.

You probably can’t identify with that.  It’s most likely just my little quirk.

I guess I still have trouble believing that God would choose me for his own.  And yet he promises that he has.  Knowing all my expert testimony, and with all that he could add if he chose to, he has justified me, at great cost to himself.  He has paid the penalty for my many crimes.  And so, the charges won’t stick.  The condemnation won’t hold.

Not even my charges.  My condemnation.

That makes for a happy Wednesday, Beloved.

Back to Romans we go…

What, then, shall we say in response to this?  If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)

For the record, the “this” above refers to the fact that God has predestined, called, justified, and glorified us.  We talked about it a couple of weeks ago.  This is why it’s a good idea to read your One-a-Days every day…keeps you in the loop.

God is for you.  He is on your side.  I don’t wanna get all Greeky on you, but that “If” at the beginning of the sentence does not imply “maybe so, maybe no,” but rather “since.”  We could read it, “Since God is for us…”

So let’s.

Since God is for us, who can be against us?  I want you to do something this morning.  I want you to make a mental list of all the things and people and circumstances that seem to be against you.  Pile them all on one side of your mental scale.

On the other side, put the Creator, Sustainer, and Lord of the Universe.

What happens to your scale?

Exactly.

So, hold on to that picture today.  Whatever Monday tries to throw at you, remember that it pales in strength next to the One who is on your side.

The One who created you.

The One who died for you.

The One who calls you his own.

Walk in confidence today, Beloved.

Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn my hand against the little ones (Zechariah 13:7b).

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6).

Everybody loves you when you’re winning.

What happened to the crowds?  Was it just last Sunday that the people were lining the streets, cheering for Jesus?  Now where are they?

Gone.

When the soldiers came for Jesus, the disciples scattered.  John followed, but at a distance.  He needed to know what was happening, but he couldn’t bring himself to intervene.

Peter, like John, followed at a distance.  He mingled with the crowd, where he could blend in and, hopefully, go unnoticed.  While he was standing with a group, a servant girl recognized him.  Here was Peter’s chance to stand tall for Christ.  Here was his golden opportunity to proclaim his loyalty to Jesus and stand with him—die with him, if need be.  After all, that is what he had promised Jesus.

What did he do?  You know what he did.  He denied his Lord.  Big, strong Peter couldn’t stand up to the questions of the lowliest servant girl.

What of the rest?  All we know is that they ran for it.

Don’t be too hard on the disciples.  I’m convinced they genuinely believed that they were up to the challenge.  When Peter said he would never betray Jesus, I think he meant it down to the marrow of his bones.  He didn’t have the courage, because he was only human.  Like us.  We know that John, and Mary, and a few others came to the cross before Jesus died; Jesus even spoke to John from the cross. But in the end, Jesus had to fulfill his purpose himself.

In the end, Jesus went to the cross alone.

He went to the grave alone.

He rose from the dead alone.

Because he had to.  That was the point—if anyone else could have done it, if anyone else could have helped, we wouldn’t have needed the perfect Son of God.

Jesus stood alone so that you will never have to.

Because he loves you.

You.

Walk in thankfulness today, Beloved.

The Thursday Before Easter

Jesus, Our Passover Lamb

The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you.  No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt (Exodus 12:13).  

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth (Isaiah 53:7).

After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities (Isaiah 53:11).

You sin.

If that’s news to you, well, there you go.  At least you’re in good company—pretty much everyone.

That sin gets between you and God and messes up your relationship, just like lying, cheating, or whatnot hurts any relationship.  The Old Covenant had a means for dealing with sin and restoring your relationship with God.

Death.

Don’t like that part?  Well, I don’t blame you, but there it is.  As Paul says, “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 3:23)  When Adam and Eve first sinned, death was the result.  God took an animal, killed it, and used the skin to cover their nakedness…their sin.  From that point on, animals were sacrificed to atone, or make up for, man’s sin.

Why would God want us to kill animals, and how does that make up for doing bad things?  By itself, the idea doesn’t seem to make much sense.  But think of it in context.  God used the sacrifice—the physical death—of innocent animals to remind us that sin causes spiritual death in us.  And it couldn’t be just any animal—it had to be your best.  Woe unto you if you brought leftovers to the Lord of the Universe.

The Passover Lamb was a particularly special sacrifice.  It reminded the people of their rescue from slavery.  When God broke Pharaoh’s will and forced him to release the Hebrews, he did it by sending an angel to put to death the firstborn of all Egypt.  To spare his people from this nightmare, God had them kill a lamb—a perfect lamb, without any defect—and sprinkle its blood on the doorposts of their house.  The Lord promised to “pass over” those houses sprinkled with blood.  The Jews continue to celebrate the Passover as a most holy day.

As we saw yesterday, Jesus brought a new covenant.  As he celebrated Passover with his closest friends, he said he was instituting, “A new covenant, in my blood.”  You see, the old covenant was limited in its power.  The blood of an animal could temporarily cover a man’s sin, but it could never remove it.  A man’s blood was useless, because the sacrifice had to be perfect, and no man was perfect.

Until Jesus.

Jesus lived a sinless life, and thus was the one man in all of history who did not need to offer a sacrifice.

So he offered himself as the sacrifice.

For us.

There is no way to adequately explain Christ’s sacrifice; certainly not in these few words.  My Bible covers it in about 2000 pages, and I still don’t fully get it.  So let’s rest in these words from Paul:

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  (2 Corinthians 5:21)

In Christ, you are righteous; in him, you are righteousness.  I can’t get my brain around that, but I know I want it.

Do you want it, Beloved?

Then take it.