The Holy One calls to me this morning. The sense of His Presence floods the room like the light of a brilliant sun rising on a new day. I hear Him say, "Only Jesus".
With fragments of thought He challenges my mind and I wonder where He will lead. I have been deep in lots of thoughts lately about the life and time in Jesus earthly mission and journey leading up to Good Friday and the Cross and why He is so worthy of our worship.
There are stories written that miss the truth about why Jesus died, and in the re-telling of history, lack a grasp of God's Sovereign purpose. His death can be laid at the feet of Rome, or the Jews, or a traitor in His midst. However, with Spiritual understanding we know that Jesus death was not due to human reaction to His message although humans did react and still do. Jesus came to die. That was His mission and He was sent by God to into the world so that all men through His death and subsequent resurrection might be saved.
I have come to know and accept as truth that due to human depravity and a "sin" nature we a carry in our flesh from birth, there has been no person who could pay the price of Holiness, atone for sin and live to tell of it.....Only Jesus.
In God's economy death is the penalty for sin. If not for one sinless life being sacrificed, each sinful human would die for their individual sin nature and then live no more. Such is God's justice and the end of any possibility of eternal life based on our own sacrifice and death.
Fortunately that tragic truth is not the end of the human story except by rejection of God's Only Son Jesus, who brought and lived out the plan for our salvation and rescue offered to each individual during this temporal, earthly life.
When we think about the crucifixion of Christ and now are able to see it depicted on the big screen, the torture becomes real and it is hard to watch. But then other movies have been produced that show in graphic detail human carnage and suffering whereby our minds can become de-sensitized to what our Lord suffered in our behalf.
Crucifixions and be-headings have surfaced as a means of persecution and death for His followers around the world. We watch videos in real time and are horrified and then we see our war heroes come back from the theater of battle with unbelievable wounds, maimed and scarred. So was it just the physical torture and death that saved our souls?
When I follow the thoughts from the words the Holy Spirit spoke to me this morning, I begin to understand a little more of the mystery of why "Only Jesus" was spoken.
Due to our sin nature, humans cannot fathom the relationship with God until after our salvation and then only partially and that is due to the possession by the Holy Spirit. Jesus, on the other hand, lived in the place of relationship with the Father God from eternity past and throughout His life on earth until that dark day on the calendar we call Good Friday.
The Cross of Christ is the place where all the judgment and wrath of Holiness against sin was vented and where the curse of the fall was experience in full and broken off humanity by the shed blood of Jesus.
The warning spoken was the penalty fulfilled, "And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat of it you will surely die". Gen. 2:16-17
The death that Adam and Eve experienced at that time was not a physical one as we know it. Rather they were cast out of the garden where they first walked with the Creator in a peaceful relationship and humanity was set to continue life relationally void of the most important piece of their eternal design.
Only Jesus as one part of the three Person eternal Trinity could fully understand what separation from His eternal Father is all about.
Only Jesus Who knew the Father intimately and eternally could suffer what any and all who die without Him will suffer when the final end comes.
We live as eternal beings in carnal bodies. The human idea of death is focused on the physical and natural elements of our being. But the bigger picture and greater penalty is the emotional, spiritual and soul separation from our Creator.
When our Lord said on the Cross, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?" that was the full penalty he suffered and paid for us all. The physical torture was one thing, but the relational separation between Jesus and the Father was the ultimate agony.
Not unlike when we suffer the emotional loss of a loved one and the "death" of relationship with our human beloveds, Jesus felt that pain on an unfathomable level. For the first time in His eternal being He was separated, abandoned, forsaken and alone. The Holy eyes of the Creator Father could not look upon the sin laid on the Creator Son.
We humans cannot begin to know that suffering until we stand before the judgment seat of Holiness. Only there without the Savior Jesus will we know and bear the ultimate penalty for sin. Here we live in chosen ignorance but there we will see the clearly without self deception.
Only Jesus as God, the Son, could pay the ultimate price for our salvation because only Jesus knows what eternal separation from God the Father means to the soul.
We recoil at the physical suffering of crucifixion and can thank Him for bearing the cost on a physical level but to truly grasp the ultimate price He paid for us we must look at the emotional and relational sacrifice He made to save us.
Only Jesus could make the conscious decision as God to pay the relational price in death for our sin because only Jesus was with God when time as we know it began.
Each and every day draws us closer to that last one we will experience here on earth. Each day with all there is to keep us distracted the question of where we will spend eternity and more importantly WHO we will be spending it with can get shoved down on the list of life's priorities As for me, I pray to have my focus on Jesus with a deeper reverence for why I call Him Savior.
Only Jesus knows what humans will suffer if we pass on from here without Him.
Only Jesus.......can save the soul!
Only Jesus.....
The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?
.
With fragments of thought He challenges my mind and I wonder where He will lead. I have been deep in lots of thoughts lately about the life and time in Jesus earthly mission and journey leading up to Good Friday and the Cross and why He is so worthy of our worship.
There are stories written that miss the truth about why Jesus died, and in the re-telling of history, lack a grasp of God's Sovereign purpose. His death can be laid at the feet of Rome, or the Jews, or a traitor in His midst. However, with Spiritual understanding we know that Jesus death was not due to human reaction to His message although humans did react and still do. Jesus came to die. That was His mission and He was sent by God to into the world so that all men through His death and subsequent resurrection might be saved.
I have come to know and accept as truth that due to human depravity and a "sin" nature we a carry in our flesh from birth, there has been no person who could pay the price of Holiness, atone for sin and live to tell of it.....Only Jesus.
In God's economy death is the penalty for sin. If not for one sinless life being sacrificed, each sinful human would die for their individual sin nature and then live no more. Such is God's justice and the end of any possibility of eternal life based on our own sacrifice and death.
Fortunately that tragic truth is not the end of the human story except by rejection of God's Only Son Jesus, who brought and lived out the plan for our salvation and rescue offered to each individual during this temporal, earthly life.
When we think about the crucifixion of Christ and now are able to see it depicted on the big screen, the torture becomes real and it is hard to watch. But then other movies have been produced that show in graphic detail human carnage and suffering whereby our minds can become de-sensitized to what our Lord suffered in our behalf.
Crucifixions and be-headings have surfaced as a means of persecution and death for His followers around the world. We watch videos in real time and are horrified and then we see our war heroes come back from the theater of battle with unbelievable wounds, maimed and scarred. So was it just the physical torture and death that saved our souls?
When I follow the thoughts from the words the Holy Spirit spoke to me this morning, I begin to understand a little more of the mystery of why "Only Jesus" was spoken.
Due to our sin nature, humans cannot fathom the relationship with God until after our salvation and then only partially and that is due to the possession by the Holy Spirit. Jesus, on the other hand, lived in the place of relationship with the Father God from eternity past and throughout His life on earth until that dark day on the calendar we call Good Friday.
The Cross of Christ is the place where all the judgment and wrath of Holiness against sin was vented and where the curse of the fall was experience in full and broken off humanity by the shed blood of Jesus.
The warning spoken was the penalty fulfilled, "And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat of it you will surely die". Gen. 2:16-17
The death that Adam and Eve experienced at that time was not a physical one as we know it. Rather they were cast out of the garden where they first walked with the Creator in a peaceful relationship and humanity was set to continue life relationally void of the most important piece of their eternal design.
Only Jesus as one part of the three Person eternal Trinity could fully understand what separation from His eternal Father is all about.
Only Jesus Who knew the Father intimately and eternally could suffer what any and all who die without Him will suffer when the final end comes.
We live as eternal beings in carnal bodies. The human idea of death is focused on the physical and natural elements of our being. But the bigger picture and greater penalty is the emotional, spiritual and soul separation from our Creator.
When our Lord said on the Cross, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?" that was the full penalty he suffered and paid for us all. The physical torture was one thing, but the relational separation between Jesus and the Father was the ultimate agony.
Not unlike when we suffer the emotional loss of a loved one and the "death" of relationship with our human beloveds, Jesus felt that pain on an unfathomable level. For the first time in His eternal being He was separated, abandoned, forsaken and alone. The Holy eyes of the Creator Father could not look upon the sin laid on the Creator Son.
We humans cannot begin to know that suffering until we stand before the judgment seat of Holiness. Only there without the Savior Jesus will we know and bear the ultimate penalty for sin. Here we live in chosen ignorance but there we will see the clearly without self deception.
Only Jesus as God, the Son, could pay the ultimate price for our salvation because only Jesus knows what eternal separation from God the Father means to the soul.
We recoil at the physical suffering of crucifixion and can thank Him for bearing the cost on a physical level but to truly grasp the ultimate price He paid for us we must look at the emotional and relational sacrifice He made to save us.
Only Jesus could make the conscious decision as God to pay the relational price in death for our sin because only Jesus was with God when time as we know it began.
Each and every day draws us closer to that last one we will experience here on earth. Each day with all there is to keep us distracted the question of where we will spend eternity and more importantly WHO we will be spending it with can get shoved down on the list of life's priorities As for me, I pray to have my focus on Jesus with a deeper reverence for why I call Him Savior.
Only Jesus knows what humans will suffer if we pass on from here without Him.
Only Jesus.......can save the soul!
Only Jesus.....
The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?
.
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