What love! Love that didn’t eliminate humankind when it chose to be against Him. Love that instead chose to become the required sacrifice for sin.
See, we are born anti-God. Yes. Yes, we are. Since Adam and Eve chose the serpent’s way instead of God’s, all of us are tainted with that stain of choosing to be anti-God.
“Anti” means against.
Stings when we see it this way, though, doesn’t it? To be anti-God conjures the thought that we want nothing to do with Him or that we would battle against Him.
That’s exactly where we are before we choose Him and His Way over ourselves and our selfish ways.
The GOOD NEWS is that while we were anti-God — walking our own path without a care for God or His path for us — He still loved us so much that Jesus willingly came to walk the earth. He set aside His glory and left Heaven in order to come to this place He had created, born as a human baby. He grew up, following all the Law, from honoring His parents (whom He had created) to refraining from theft, murder, and desiring what belonged to another. As an adult He began a ministry of healing and rescue. He touched hearts and bodies, restoring what the enemy had taken and what self-worship had stolen.
While we were anti-God, Jesus came and died for us. While we didn’t have the time of day for Him, He died in our place. While we willingly chose anything in place of Him, even denying His existence, He willingly chose torture and death so we wouldn’t have to endure it.
But, Faye! I wasn’t even born when Jesus died!
I wasn’t either, but remember: time is a construct for mankind. God isn’t confined by it. To Him, everything is present. Every moment is visible. Everything is here and now. To Him, when Jesus suffered the cruel lashes and the nails through His body, we were right there. We are the ones who can’t comprehend here and now being there and then.
The thing to focus on is that despite your being anti-God, He loves You. You can refuse to believe that He even exists and He still loves you enough to die for you.
You can choose to stop being anti-God. It requires surrender of self and selfish ways. Ways that attribute honor and glory to anything or anyone other than YHWH, Jehovah, Elohim, Jesus, God (all these are names of the Creator God).
Choose to take you off the throne — out of control of your life — and place God on it. Determine that in every circumstance God gets to make all the decisions for your life. Openly acknowledge that Jesus is Lord and believe deeply that God raised Him from the dead.
This is being saved. This is salvation. This is the rescue that only God could do.
This is love for you. From God.
Back there, back then, right here, right now.
Comprehending that we were there when Jesus died… doesn’t make sense to our human minds, but it’s perfect sense to God’s. He sees everything all at one time. So that’s the idea of this is that we need to understand that even when we were not physically present, we were. I know it doesn’t make sense. But if we could make sense out of everything that is God, out of everything that He says, out of everything that He does–if we could make sense of all of that, we would be God. And we are not.
These are things that we have to take on faith, that we take in understanding through our faith. The thing to concentrate on, the thing to focus on, the thing to be truly concerned about is the love. The love that brought Jesus out of heaven and the splendor of heaven, of having angels singing around about Him constantly telling Him how holy He is, how marvelous He is… the being able to command everything, speak a word and planets form… to step out of that, to come and live as a human walking on Earth, getting dirty feet, having people yell at you, having –not yelling good things. Not shouting holy, holy, holy. They’re shouting ugly things. To have people reject you instead of accept that you are Almighty God. Having all of that, He chose to leave it. Because He loves us, He loves all of mankind, those that are good and those who are bad. Those who think they’re all that and those who are very humble. All of mankind, He loves. He loved them enough to step out of that splendor into Earth that is not splendor.
What love! What love that chose to take the lashes–39 or more stripes with a tool designed to rip flesh from bone. He chose to bear that cross beam of the cross on top of those wounds, going up the hill of Golgotha. He chose to be nailed onto those beams to be placed up on display as a criminal, though he was not one. He chose because He loves. He loves you and He loves me, and He loves your neighbor, and He loves the guy down the street and He loves the addict, and He loves the people in jail, and he loves the people who have committed crimes, and those who have not.
He loves the people who think they’re so righteous and those who know they’re not. He loves all of us. When we get that understanding that He loved us in our mess and came as the sacrifice for us in our mess, we can begin to comprehend that His love is so amazing, and so beyond what we could ever imagine doing. It’s hard for us to imagine receiving it, but we need to! You get to choose to accept that amazing love and receive the rescue from the penalty for your sin, and all it takes is your surrender–your choice to follow Him instead of following yourself or some other god.
See, when we put ourselves on the throne of our lives, when we say we’re the boss, we’re putting us in the place of God. Not a good idea.
So here’s today’s challenge: choose to recognize that God Himself loves you so much, that He chose to be shamed. He chose to be rejected. He chose to be tortured, and He chose to die for you, because He loves you. And then on that third day He rose again. God lifted Him from that grave, and now He sits at the right hand of God, praying for you. Yes, praying for you. He’s advocating with the Father against the enemy for you.
Pretty amazing, this transaction that we really can’t grasp, but we can accept. We don’t know the fullness of it we can’t comprehend it, but it is so real. As you know this love and you experience it and you grow in it, you’re able to tell others about it, and they’re able to experience it, and revel in it and grow in it, and they tell others who revel in it and grow in it. And that’s building the kingdom. And all you’ve had to do is surrender.
So give it a try today my friend. Believers, share your story, tell people how in the midst of your mess God came to you. He loved you so much right there, that He died for you, so that they can understand that right in the middle of their mess He loves them, and He died for them.
Coffee, Bible, Journal.
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