Bible Ballistics: Memorial to Whom?? Vol 4 #3 May 25, 2014
As we spend this weekend honoring those in our military services, our thoughts go to those who now, and in the past have given themselves to guard and protect our freedoms. To honor those who made what we call the ‘ultimate sacrifice’. I’d like to take that thought and go in a different direction. While we are thankful for our servicemen and women, there is one who made the truly ‘ultimate’ sacrifice, who died to give us not only political freedom but eternal life and forgiveness of sin, for all who will trust Him.
Of course we are talking about our Lord Jesus Christ, and His sacrifice at the ‘Cross’. I’d like us to look at several scripture passages, and one rather lengthy passage, but well worth our attention. Jesus came, not to be a good example, though He was one, not to be a good teacher, though He was that also. All the good things that Jesus did: healing, teaching, preaching, leading, are good things but they are not why He came.
In the gospel of John, the apostle emphasizes the “I Am’s” of Jesus. One is John 10:9-11 and it reveals this same truth.
“I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. 10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.”
Jesus shares here that He is the ‘door’, and only way ‘in’, and that He gives ‘abundant’ life. That He is the ‘shepherd’ who gives HIS OWN LIFE for the sheep. The same principle that He proclaims in John 14:6,
“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
And John 3:14-19, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
Jesus came to be lifted up—to give His life for us, that we can escape the condemnation of sin, yet only in Jesus. Because as Romans tells us, ‘all have sinned’, and ‘the wages of sin is death’, but ‘the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord…”. Yet men still reject the light and cling to their evil deeds and the darkness, knowing that Jesus gave His life for all who will believe: His light for man’s darkness of sin. Knowing that God…
“….. hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 ONLY IN HIM.
The death I deserved was put on Jesus—the sinless one. He, who created all of glory, put it aside to take on flesh, live a perfect life, and die a substitutionary death for ME—for YOU. Now let’s just look at the passage in Hebrews and see what it reveals about life in, with and through Jesus. Let God’s Word speak truth to your soul. His life for my death. Because His death bought my life in HIM..
Hebrews 10:5-22, “Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: 6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
8 Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; 9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.
He taketh away the first,
that he may establish the second.
10 By the which will we are sanctified
through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ
once for all.
11 And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:
12 But this man,
after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins for ever,
sat down on the right hand of God;
13 From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.
14 For by one offering he hath
perfected for ever
them that are sanctified.
15 Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, 16 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord,
I will put my laws into their hearts,
and in their minds will I write them;
17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
18 Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.
19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
20 By a new and living way,
which he hath consecrated for us,
through the veil, that is to say,
his flesh;
21 And having an high priest
over the house of God;
22 Let us draw near with a true heart
in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience,
and our bodies washed with pure water.”
Just as John wrote, ‘….the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin’. (see 1 John 1:7). Things to ponder as we celebrate the sacrifice of our troops, and the sacrifice of our Lord, whose Holy Spirit writes Christ’s ways on our hearts when we come to Him in repentance and faith. May God bless, comfort and direct your steps to grow each of us in HIM.
As Paul called Timothy to do in 2 Timothy 2:1-4,
“Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. 2 And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. 3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 4 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.” Good soldier or AWOL???
Thanks for sharing your time and comments with me. You all are a blessing to my soul. ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow’, past, present and future. What will you do with the ‘sacrifice’?
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