Lay Down My Life

I just watched the video for the song below and it is difficult to comment because of the emotions it produced. Like the apostle Paul writes in II Corinthians 5:14, “The love of Christ controls us”. The love Jesus demonstrated for us on Calvary captures us – it is that great. I am talking to myself but I am including, through assumption, maybe all of us. What Jesus did for us is hard to grasp. The eternal Son of God left the glory of heaven, became a human for the explicit purpose of dying on the cross to pay for our sins as the holy and blameless Lamb of God.

We spend our time on such worthless and ineffectual matters. We think about too many worldly things. We really need Jesus in the front of our minds every day. I think this is where Paul has much to contribute. EVERY – SINGLE – DAY Paul focused on the gospel (death, burial, and resurrection) of Jesus. He never got far from the cross in his own life OR in his thirteen letters – especially when he referred to his own salvation. Here are a few verses for us to cement our souls into:

*Romans 1:16 – For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

*I Corinthians 2:2 – For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

*II Corinthians 8:9 – For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.

*Galatians 2:20 – I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

*Galatians 6:14 – But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

*Philippians 3:8 – I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.

Read Isaiah 52:13-53:12 and check out the video entitled Lay Down My Life by Sidewalk Prophets.

The Exalted Servant

Behold, My Servant will prosper,
He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted.
Just as many were appalled at you, My people,
So His appearance was marred beyond that of a man,
And His form beyond the sons of mankind.
So He will sprinkle many nations,
Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him;
For what they had not been told, they will see,
And what they had not heard, they will understand.

The Suffering Servant

Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of dry ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we would look at Him,
Nor an appearance that we would take pleasure in Him.
He was despised and abandoned by men,
A man of great pain and familiar with sickness;
And like one from whom people hide their faces,
He was despised, and we had no regard for Him.

However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore,
And our pains that He carried;
Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted,
Struck down by God, and humiliated.
But He was pierced for our offenses,
He was crushed for our wrongdoings;
The punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him,
And by His wounds we are healed.
All of us, like sheep, have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the wrongdoing of us all
To fall on Him.

He was oppressed and afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.
By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
And as for His generation, who considered
That He was cut off from the land of the living
For the wrongdoing of my people, to whom the blow was due?
And His grave was assigned with wicked men,
Yet He was with a rich man in His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

But the Lord desired
To crush Him, causing Him grief;
If He renders Himself as a guilt offering,
He will see His offspring,
He will prolong His days,
And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.
As a result of the anguish of His soul,
He will see it and be satisfied;
By His knowledge the Righteous One,
My Servant, will justify the many,
For He will bear their wrongdoings.
Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great,
And He will divide the plunder with the strong,
Because He poured out His life unto death,
And was counted with wrongdoers;
Yet He Himself bore the sin of many,
And interceded for the wrongdoers.