Praise the Lord for this Friday; Sunday is coming. Alice and I watched
some of the NCAA Basketball Tournament yesterday evening, as the
Cinderella teams came to the ball and attempted to end the evening victorious.
We had also some Google chat time with some of our grandchildren,
who fully entertained us with their antics. Thank you for praying for
me. I am getting stronger day by day.
It
is going to be brilliant weekend. We are getting ready for the
coming Lord's day. We will meet for Sunday School at 9:30 AM and for
worship at 10:30 AM. Plan to be in the house of the Lord wherever you
might be. Let us all gather in gratitude and thanksgiving, in worship and
witness. The Lord is exalted. Salvation belongs to our God who is
upon the Throne.
We
are well into the season of Lent, which began on March 1. The central
note of the Lenten season is that Jesus died on the Cross, and that He died for
our sins. As a verse from the Bible says, "'He himself bore our sins' in
his body on the cross" (1 Pet.
2:24). All of our badness, including our worst and most secret
rotten thoughts and attitudes, our selfishness, our lust, all the ways we use
people, all the ways we ignore God the Father and spurn his grace, all the
cruelty of human beings to each other, all of our cowardice and greed—all of it went into
Jesus. He bore our judgment. We were fully known and fully loved in
that singular act of death.. John
12:32: "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth [or lifted up
on the cross to die], will draw all people to myself." At the
Cross, things were ugly and brutal, but Jesus knew that the cruel
Cross was ultimately the means of drawing men, women, and children to
himself. Jesus likened his death to a grain of wheat being cast and
ground into the soil. Though no apparent good can come of that, according
to Jesus what looks like the grain's demise is in fact its harvest. The
Cross means we can find life in something infinitely deeper than
fickle human praise, achievements, or accomplishments.
The
atheist physicist Lawrence Krauss wrote in The
New York Times: "[Human beings] are just a bit of pollution. If you
got rid of us … then the universe would be largely the same. We're
completely irrelevant." At the Cross of Jesus, we hear the exact
opposite; we are significant. We are loved beyond measure -
fully known and fully loved. That's what happened on the
Cross. Jesus says that through the Cross, He "will draw all
people to myself."
In
Christ and because of Christ we keep getting drawn back to the
Cross. We keep on saying at the Cross we see the amazing love and
wonderful grace of the Lord has been demonstrated for the world- for
us all - in all ages, in all seasons, in all circumstances, for all
people. His grace and love were poured out for enemies and rebels,
sinners, and prodigals. This is where we find our true
significance... life and liberty.
In
Christ,
Brown
No comments:
Post a Comment