He paid it all

I am back in the very church I grew up in, the one where I met so many people and remember them so very well but could not tell you who I talked to yesterday. Of course, after 35 years, it seems so much smaller, the years have not been kind to it or me. We both need some work done.

As I sit here contemplating why God decided to call me back, wondering what I am to do, I am looking around, having a little prayer meet just Him and me, and a thought occurred to me.

When I was here last as a child, I didn’t know Christ. I was saved, I knew of Him, but in the limited understanding of a child, He was an abstract, Something people spoke about in hushed tones, never fully explaining to a kid, who or what He truly was, in a way that was fully grasped in my mind.

Answered prayers to me meant nothing because I was a kid everything was taken care of for me by my mother, everything had a place everything in it’s place. The supernatural? That stuff was for babies, that didn’t happen.

Now as I stand here as an adult, I want to make everyone aware of Christ, but not the abstract one, the Christ I know, the Christ who died for me, for them. The very Christ that I was aware of but never knew until He came looking for me years later. Again salvation took place for me at a very young age 7 or 8, but understanding and realization, a full awakening of who Christ is, who He wants to be in your life, did not come till my later years.

2Co 5:20  Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. 

2Co 5:21  For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 

Christ is God, God came to this earth, took on our form and died for us, was buried for us, rose again from the grave for us. He defeated death and sin, He rose that we might have life and have life eternal.

Are you fully aware of just what that means? God the Sinless, Pure, Just, Holy Judge, took off His robes in Heaven, came to this earth and allowed Himself to be the very embodiment of our sin on the cross. He did not just take away your sin, He was your sin, He became sin, He who knew no sin, who was perfect, came to this earth to bear the death, the crucifixion, the abandonment by the Father, He came to pay the price that was due of you and me. The Judge cast the verdict of guilty, then that Judge came to pay the price for that guilty verdict.

Does that fact truly reach into the recesses of your brain? The fact that God the Creator, who created us, who breathed life into us, had to come and be the sacrifice for our sins? He had to pay the price we could not. For only a perfect being, one who had not sinned, could be the payment for that sin. Sinful man could never pay the price due to a Pure and Holy God for our betrayal, our sin. Why? Because God could not allow that sin into His presence or He would not be pure and just.

That is why God had to turn His back on Jesus on the Cross. Jesus was the sin He died for. His own Father could not bear to look at Him for our Sin that was on Him. OUR SIN. Nothing He had done caused His dad to turn from Him, it was what we had done that caused Him to face the ultimate rejection.

The realization of just exactly what the Cross cost Him, makes it very valuable. The cost does not make it valuable, for Jesus paid that price freely and fully. There is no cost associated with it for us. No, the realization, the understanding of what that cross cost Him, is what makes it valuable. For when that realization comes, when that understanding hits, then the full value of the cross is made known to you.

Christ hung on the cross, crucified by man, spurned by God. He was rejected by any and all on the cross, and we seem to think that it was for a moment then done. That is not the case, He hung on that cross for hours, the sky was dark for hours. Hours. He was abandoned, alone, in agony for hours! Why? So that you and I did not have to be. That is why.

The price He paid, the sin He became, the rejection He faced from His Father, was just for you. Was just for me. He paid it all for one. Yes, He died for the whole world, but the world rejects Him on a regular basis, He died for the one who would receive Him.

When we say John 3:16 we must put our name in the whosoever, but not flippantly, no we must do it reverentially, not in hushed tones, no, raise your voice to the sky, Christ died for me! Christ was on the cross knowing the price He was paying, and the moment you fully realize that cost, He becomes real to you.

The understanding of who He is becomes clearer and plainer when you know Him, the price He paid. Not just of Him, But Him. Who He is, what He wants, and what you, what I, cost Him.

When I say the understanding of Who He is, I do not mean Christ the Savior, God Incarnate. I am speaking of the Christ you asked to come into your life, to save you, to change your life. I am talking of the Christ that you say you serve. When you asked Christ to come in to your life you had no idea what that meant, not in fullness, not in totality.

Every day should be a day closer to understanding, every day should be a day of deeper appreciation for what He has done for you.

(Isa 53:3)
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

(Isa 53:4)
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

(Isa 53:5)
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.