The Pain of a Savior

Look at Him at Gethsemane, sweating as it were great drops of blood; look at Him on the cross, crucified between two thieves; hear that piercing cry, "Father, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." And as you look into that face, as you look into those wounds on His feet or His hands, will you say He has not the power to save you? Will you say He has not the power to redeem you? D.L. Moody

When I read about the days leading up to the death of Jesus on the cross, I often think about how much courage that took and how lonely that time was for Jesus.  In all my imaginings I am not able to fathom how much pain and sorrow was in His heart for a people who were ungrateful and many times indifferent. 

In my entire life I have had one surgery.  The pain after it was enough to bring me to my knees, but during the process of the surgery I had anesthesia to deaden the pain so that while they were making the foot long incision, at least I couldn’t feel it and wasn’t aware of the pain.

When I think about Jesus that brings me to my knees.  How could it not.  If someone walked up to you on the street and placed a crown of thorns on your head, walked you to a cross and took spikes and nailed them through your hands and feet, then lifted you up into the air so that the weight of your body was pulling at the wounds in your hands and feet, would there ever be a point where you looked up to heaven and said “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

I am weak and lowly compared to Jesus.  The courage it took to give up His life for a people who were ungrateful, hateful and cruel is sometimes beyond my understanding and comprehension.  There are people in this world today who do the same thing that happened all those years ago.  They say He isn’t our Savior and He isn’t the Son of God and any other number of untrue statements. 

If I didn’t have a Savior who died a horrible death on a cross and brought me a way back to God, then what hope would I have in this life?  He is risen and His death came at great cost. Jesus is my Savior and no one can take that from me.   

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I praise You for providing a way back to relationship with You through the death of Your Son on a cross.  Jesus is the Lamb of God who died for my sins.  I praise Him for loving me enough to give up His life as the ultimate sacrifice for a sinful person like me.  Thank You Father for giving me a chance to live in eternity with You forever.

 

Scripture: The Prayer in the Garden

Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.”

He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” Matthew 26:36-39