Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot! Picture yourself in first century Israel staring into the possibility of being nailed to a cross so that someone else to go free. Envision the beating, the humiliation, and certain death you would experience so that the other person could live. Plus, you are innocent and the other person is guilty and they are the one who deserves to die. The authorities are going to execute him unless you take his place. What would you do? Would you take the place of that man?
Jesus was faced with that exact situation and decision. He was the innocent, holy Son of God. He never sinned – EVER. From a glorious position in heaven’s throne room He decided to lower Himself and become a human in order to die on the cruel cross to pay for our sins. For His own sake, in the garden, Jesus prayed that there might be another way, but He wanted to do the Father’s will above His own. Sweat poured down His face like drops of blood in His consternation and grief concerning His impending death (Luke 22:44). He even could have called down angels from heaven to destroy the enemy, but He didn’t; instead, He endured the cross for our sake.
What would you have done if the situation was reversed? Would you give your life for Jesus? Oh, He is going to live eternally because He is God the Son, but would you give your life to live for Him because He died for you? That’s the actual call of discipleship: “And He summoned the crowd together with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it benefit a person to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what could a person give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:34-37). Would you……?
Read Isaiah 53:1-12. Then Listen to This Man by Jeremy Camp. Then give your life to Jesus today and everyday for the rest of your time on earth all the way to eternal glory.
Isaiah 53
Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.