God is doing some awesome and amazing things in lots and lots of people that I know. One of those people recently posted a message on MySpace which said:
If I was worth dying for…..
then this God is worth living for!
My response was this:
You were more than worth dying for…
You were worth swapping the throne of heaven for time in the pit of hell for.
You were worth having a bond that made Him part of the Holy Trinity severed thus making Him cut off from the perfect connection He had had with Father God for all eternity.
You were worth being whipped, beaten, tortured, having His beard pulled out, a crown of thorns pushed onto His head, dragged through the streets, nailed to a cross so that he suffocated to death having to push against nails that went through his feet just to be able to breath, hanging there for hours dying from suffocation and loss of blood, in more pain that you and I could ever imagine.
You were worth all of that. He didn’t hold anything back. He BECAME sin, meaning that God could no longer have any connection with Him because God and sin cannot exist together. He gave up everything. EVERYTHING. Not one thing did He hold on to. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. There was no “I just want…” or “I like to…” or “I can do….”
He gave it all up because YOU were and are worth it.
So with that in mind, what are you going to NOT give up for Him?
You see, we think about Christ dying but that really means nothing to us. Most of us have very little grasp of what it means to die. We’ve never been dead so we struggle to understand what it means.
More than that though, we struggle to understand what it meant to be Jesus, Son of God, the one of whom John says:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made…..
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
John 1:1-4 and 14
and give everything up.
Trying to imagine what it took, how it felt, what it was like, to be the one through whom all things were made and yet to literally give EVERYTHING up to become a man and be crucified is next to impossible for us. It’s completely outside of our realm of understanding.
Seriously, there’s not one single thing He kept for Himself. Jesus laid it all down. His life, His Authority, His throne, His connection to God EVERYTHING.
That’s what it cost to win your salvation. That’s what it cost for Jesus to buy you back. It cost EVERYTHING. If God is EVERYTHING then He gave EVERYTHING up. not everything as we know it but EVERYTHING that has ever and will ever exist in heaven or on earth. EVERYTHING.
So, knowing that. Knowing the price He paid for you, what are you prepared to give back to Him or give up for Him? Or more precisely, what are you NOT prepared to give up for Him?
We all have something, what is it that you’re not prepared to give up?
- Your phone?
- Your MySpace?
- Your shoes?
- Your friends?
- Your favorite movies?
- A meal?
- Your family?
- Your car?
- Your house?
- Your freedom?
- Chocolate?
- Your…..
- Maybe you ignore the prompting of God to do something because you want to do something else and you’re not prepared to give that thing up.
- Maybe you ignore God’s prompting to give someone something because you want it for yourself. Have you ever gone without food for one meal so that a homeless person can eat once this week?
- Maybe you hear God calling you to stop watching something or doing something so you have more time to spend with Him but you ignore his call.
- Maybe you know in your heart that something you do is not exactly Godly and pulls you away from the depth of relationship He wants to have with you – but you can’t bring yourself to give it up for Him.
that was amazing once again. i do love reading your blogs, they really make me think. love you brother