77 Days for Revival (Day 3 of 77) Week 1 Prayer Focus: Dear God, please grant me repentance that I might love you more and feel true sorrow for all that separates me from You. Day 3 Steps to Jesus Reading: He spoke against insincerity, unbelief, and sin, but sadness was in His voice when He had to speak sharply. Jesus cried over the city He loved, because it would not receive Him as the way, the truth, and the life. The people had turned against their Saviour, but He looked on them with tender pity. Jesus did not live to please Himself, but He had thoughtful care for others. Every person was precious in His sight. He looked with tender love on every member of God’s family. He saw all human beings as people who needed to be saved. The life Jesus lived shows us His character. His life also shows us God’s character. Rivers of heavenly love flow out from the heart of God to us through His Son. Jesus, the tender, pitying Saviour, was God, who “appeared in human form” (1 Timothy 3:16). Jesus lived and suffered and died to save us. He became a “Man of sorrows” so that we could share in everlasting joy. God let His dear Son leave the glory of heaven and come to a world spoiled by sin. He let Him come to a world dark with the shadow of death. He let His precious Son leave His presence and the worship of the angels. He let Him suffer shame, hate, and death. But “we are healed by the punishment he suffered, made whole by the blows he received” (Isaiah 53:5). See Jesus in the desert, in Gethsemane, and upon the cross! The perfect Son of God took upon Himself the weight of sin. He had been one with God, but on the cross He felt the awful separation sin makes between God and man. It forced from His lips the cry of pain, “My God, my God, why did you abandon me?” (Matthew 27:46). It was the weight of sin, its terrible power to separate a sinner from God, that broke His heart. But the Son of God did not give His life to make His Father love us. He did not die to make God willing to save. No, no! “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). The Father loves us not because Christ died for us; He gave His Son to die because He loved us. Through Christ God poured out His infinite love upon a sinful world. “God was making all human beings his friends through Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:19). God suffered with His Son. In the pain of Gethsemane and the death on the cross, God paid the price to save us. Jesus said, “The Father loves me because I am willing to give up my life, in order that I may receive it back again” (John 10:17). That is, “My Father has loved you so much that He loves Me even more for giving My life to redeem you. I died in your place, taking your sins. Because I did this, I am closer to My Father than before, for now God can be just and still save sinners who believe in Me.”
Posted on: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 16:05:31 +0000
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