Today is a celebration of the death of our Lord Jesus. He
was the one willing to give up his worldly life, so we can keep our eternal
life. That is what is good about Good Friday.
"Jesus called out with a loud voice, 'Father, into your
hands I commit my spirit.' When he had said this, he breathed his last."
Luke 23:46
On Good Friday we remember the death of Jesus Christ over 2,000
years ago. His sacrifice reminds us of the importance of serving causes greater
than our own understanding, and his resurrection gives us hope in the power of
redemption.
“By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not
your own doing; it is the gift of God”
(Eph. 2:8).
Please understand there is nothing that anyone can ever do
to earn salvation from God. I can’t earn it, you can’t earn it – no one can
earn it.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is
not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no
one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good
works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
(Ephesians 2:8-10 ESV)
Jesus was the Man-God; that is fully God and fully man. He
took on human form; coming to us just as we all enter the world – a helpless
baby dependent on an earthly mother and father. He never in his entire life
committed any sin – making him the only spotless sacrifice that could die for
all men over all time – once and for all.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made
through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was
life, and the life was the light of men.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have
seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and
truth.
(John 1:1-4 & 14 ESV)
All of this was written about and prophesied by the
Prophet Isaiah - more than 500 years before the coming of Christ!
TRUE LOVE
"Nobody performed an autopsy on Jesus' mangled body
after He was taken down from the cross. But doctors who have studied the
Bible's description of His death say the pain would have been beyond
excruciating. In fact, the word excruciating means "out of the
cross." Jesus literally defined the worst pain anyone could feel. His
suffering began in Gethsemane, when God laid the sins of the world on His
beloved Son. The intense stress caused what physicians call hematridrosis, a
condition in which blood seeps out of sweat glands. After His arrest, Jesus was
flogged so mercilessly that his skin was stripped off His back, exposing muscle
and bone. After being slapped, punched, crowned with thorns and beaten with
reeds, He was covered with a red robe and led to Golgotha. There, Roman
soldiers drove seven-inch nails into his wrists (most likely hitting the median
nerve, causing more blinding pain) and then they rammed another nail At that
point, doctors suggest, Jesus would have suffered dislocation of His shoulders,
cramps and spasms, dehydration from severe blood loss, fluid in His lungs and
eventual lung collapse and heart failure. Yet He refused to take a pain-killing
solution (see Matt. 27:34). He chose to endure the pain for us!"
My finite mind absolutely cannot comprehend this kind of
pain! Thank you, Jesus, for what You did for me.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have
loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life
for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. - (John 15:12-14 ESV)
I not only know it is true within my heart – I knew it was true intellectually before I gave my life to Him.
The reason we rejoice - is that He proved who he was - and what he preached was true - proven by the resurrection. Proving once and for all that he had power not only over nature; but over death itself.
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early,
while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the
tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom
Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and
we do not know where they have laid him.” So Peter went out with the other
disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running
together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And
stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in.
Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen
cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not
lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other
disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and
believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise
from the dead.
(John 20:1-9 ESV)
Resources & Links
