Perhaps one of the most heart wrenching verses you can read in Scripture. Jesus on the cross suffering with all the pain and agony. But there was a pain far greater than the physical ones that He felt. The very fact that the entire sin of the world had been placed on Him. He was ground zero for the full weight and wrath of God to be poured out on Him. He took our punishment and paid the sin-debt you and I owed. A debt that was beyond our ability to pay. Not being able to pay that debt, placed us in a position of being eternally separated from God. But Jesus came....He came to pay my debt.....and to pay yours.
Reading the journal of Jim Elliot, I came across a statement he made. I had never thought of those words "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" in this way. Those were the words that Christ cried out from the cross. God has not forsaken us. Romans 5:8 tells us, "But God demonstrated His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." When I was living my life outside the will of God....living my life with no thought as to Him or the precious gift that was offered to me through salvation....He died for me.
Jim Elliot goes on to write in his journal...."Such words Jesus offered from the cross should cause me to cry out, "My God....My God....Why have You accepted me?" This comes from a place of seeing ourselves as we truly are....sinners in need of being saved. Sin isn't the deed we do. Those deeds are evidence of the very nature that we carry around daily. From little white lies to genocide, a heart living by the old nature...the flesh (as the Apostle Paul referred to it ) the sin nature. It controls our thinking with such deception that we don't ever realize we are being controlled. Christ came to break the power of sin. He came to pay the debt of sin. Christ empowered us against the presence of sin.
When I look at my life, and all that God has blessed me with how can I not cry out "My God...My God...why have You accepted me?"
Think on this today...
God on you...
Mbb
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