Isaiah 53:5<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0But he was pierced\u00a0for our transgressions, he was crushed\u00a0for our iniquities; the punishment\u00a0that brought us peace\u00a0was on him, and by his wounds\u00a0we are healed.<\/i><\/p>\n
Philippians 2:6-8<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0Who, being in very nature\u00a0God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7\u00a0rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature\u00a0of a servant, being made in human likeness.\u00a0 8\u00a0And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death\u2014even death on a cross!<\/i><\/p>\n
Jesus died for me.\u00a0 Because I was, and am, a sinner who could not and cannot stop sinning in some way, much too often.\u00a0 I was helpless and hopeless to live out a sinless life, which is God\u2019s standard.\u00a0 Why this perfection?\u00a0 Because it is how He made us. \u00a0Because He made us to be like Him.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t make us corrupt.\u00a0 He loved us enough to give us a free will.\u00a0 What did we do with it, we sinned like a child who, knowing it wrong, steals candy and then goes in the corner of a bedroom to hide from being found, from being found out. \u00a0We might protest that a child stealing candy is not such an awful thing, it is what kids do.\u00a0 Right, kids who are born with a sin nature (that would be all of us) and that would be every person not created, it is how we all are born.\u00a0 So a child stealing candy is not a good thing and we will teach the child not to steal, but it is, to us, not a big thing.\u00a0 But we only think that it is not a \u201cbig thing\u201d because we compare that to all the sins of the world.\u00a0 It certainly is not a big thing when we consider all of our own sins.\u00a0 But we are not God.\u00a0 God made us like Himself, sinless.\u00a0 Only God knows the beauty that Adam and Ever were in their sinless nature.\u00a0 After they sinned, they saw the difference in each other.\u00a0 They tried to cover up the change.\u00a0 Before they were beautiful and sinless and now they were not.\u00a0 God\u2019s beautiful children were now marred.\u00a0 God mourned the marring that sin did to His children and Adam and Eve remembered until the day they died the beauty of the innocence they once had, but then had lost due to their own fault.\u00a0 There is no doubt that they regretted it every day of their lives.\u00a0 Adam and Eve knew the beauty of what God created us to be.\u00a0 Adam and Eve had to see they disease of sin in their all their babies and descendants, and they lived long lives and saw many descendants as Adam lived to be nine hundred thirty years old (Genesis 5:5<\/b>). Sin is ugly.\u00a0 Sin is destructive.\u00a0 Sin hurts.\u00a0 Sin kills.<\/p>\n
So all of us have the stain of sin upon us (Romans 3:10<\/b>).\u00a0 None of us are the sinless souls that God created mankind to be (Romans 3:23<\/b>).\u00a0 Yes, a small child\u2019s sin of stealing candy is small to us because it is small compared to all our own sins.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet we must remember that God is sinless.\u00a0 Remember that the Lord calls us to be sinless and yet none of us are. Next to God, any sin on our soul is a very ugly thing.\u00a0 We don\u2019t truly know what a sinless soul in a man looks like, but God does.\u00a0 The state of true peace and happiness comes with a complete and perfect union with God and that state does not happen with sin in our lives.\u00a0 And that, Beloved, is why Jesus willingly stepped down from His throne, emptied Himself of the power of His divinity to live as a man.\u00a0 Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22<\/b>).\u00a0 The shedding of blood of an innocent animal cannot pay the full price of our sin.\u00a0 Jesus was the final and all-cleansing sacrifice.\u00a0 We either come in by Him or not at all.\u00a0 Now, Jesus the only way and no other sacrifice remains (John 14:6, Hebrews 10:26<\/b>).\u00a0 God sacrificing Himself in the form of a man is the only sacrifice so eternally and infinitely valuable that the putrid sin of man can be ripped from the soul of a person so as to set them free to be what they were intended to be, pure and shining.\u00a0 Only the sacrifice of God Himself in the form of a man, with all of God\u2019s love on full display (John 3:16<\/b>), could pay the price.<\/p>\n
Jesus did that.\u00a0 He knew what He was stepping into.\u00a0 He did it because God loves us.\u00a0 He stepped down to be hated, cursed at, tortured and murdered and He did it for us.\u00a0 Only the innocent blood of Jesus, who was both God and man, could pay the price for our sins.\u00a0 That is what Jesus did.\u00a0 The Good News for all of us is that His sacrifice was so powerful, so eternal, and that the benefits extend to us and all people who are ever born, from every nation, starting with the Jew and then to the world.\u00a0 Yes, Jesus did that!.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!\u00a0 Praise God! Oh praise God!<\/p>\n
Psalm 150:6<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!<\/i><\/p>\n
Micah 7:7<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0But as for me, I watch\u00a0in hope\u00a0for the\u00a0Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear\u00a0me.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Micah 6:8<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0He has shown You, O man, what\u00a0is\u00a0good; And what does the\u00a0Lord\u00a0require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Isaiah 53:5\u00a0–\u00a0But he was pierced\u00a0for our transgressions, he was crushed\u00a0for our iniquities; the punishment\u00a0that brought us peace\u00a0was on him, and by his wounds\u00a0we are healed. Philippians 2:6-8\u00a0–\u00a0Who, being in very nature\u00a0God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7\u00a0rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature\u00a0of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192],"tags":[1865,104,103,100,94,1871,17,10],"class_list":["post-1513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotion","tag-genesis","tag-hebrews","tag-isaiah","tag-john","tag-micah","tag-philippians","tag-psalm","tag-romans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1514,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513\/revisions\/1514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}