Once there was a tree [...] & she loved a little boy. When the boy was really young, he would play king of the forest with the tree & make a crown out of her leaves. When the boy was a little older, he started to visit the tree less & less. His heart began to pursue other things - money & material possessions. So the tree gave him apples to sell, & the tree was happy. When he had grow older still, the boy wanted to build a house, so the tree gave him her branches, & the tree was happy. When the boy was fully grown, he became disillusioned with life & felt frustrated; he wanted to go somewhere far away, & so the tree offered her trunk to the boy so that he could build a boat to sail away; & that is what he did.
After a long time had passed, the boy returned, now an old man. The tree had already given the boy all her apples, her branches & even her trunk. But now the boy simply wanted a place to sit & rest, & so the tree offered him all she had left: her stump. & the tree was happy.
-The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein
The Lord gave His all for us so that we could freely come to Him.
He shed His blood in 7 different ways, each with a specific purpose:
1. Blood flowed with His sweat.
Jesus was in such great distress that His sweat became like large drops of blood that fell to the ground.
*Luke 22:42
"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."
That was the night when Jesus experienced betrayal & suffered sorrow in His own flesh.
He made the decision to pay the price that would heal our wounds & allow Him to carry all betrayal, anguish, pain & despair upon Himself.
Therefore the pain we feel as a result of betrayal has been taken away by His blood & we can now live with confidence in His peace.
2. Blood was shed because of the crown of thorns
A crown made of thorns was forced onto Jesus' head.
*Matthew 27:9-30
& then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. "Hail, king of the Jews!" they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.
The thorns easily pierced His brow, causing incessant bleeding as the soldiers struck Him repeatedly with a staff.
That blood redeems us from the curse that was upon the earth because of Adam's sin & allows us to live in blessing & prosperity.
*Genesis 3:17
To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat from it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.
3. Blood flowed from His beard.
*Isaiah 50:6
I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.
When they pulled out His beard, His face became completely disfigured & He lost all human beauty.
*Isaiah 53:2
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.
His face was made unrecognizable so that we might recover our identity.
4. Blood was shed from His back.
Before being crucified, Jesus was whipped 39 times with a Roman whip. Each strand was weighted with metal & sharp bones, which tore His skin apart until the inner parts of His body could be seen.
* Isaiah 53:4-5
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.
Because of the wounds He bore on His back, Jesus is now able to give us healing from every sickness & freedom from all iniquities.
No matter the scale or seriousness of these things, we can be set free & live in complete health because of His sacrifice.
5. Blood was shed from His hands.
Stripping Jesus completely of all His clothes, they nailed Him to the cross. They ran sharp nails through each of His hands.
During His years in the ministry the Lord had performed innumerable miracles with His hands, He had worked tirelessly to demonstrate the kingdom of heaven on earth, & He had released the power of God upon humanity.
Our heavenly Father longs to do the same through the hands of each one of His children.
That was why He allowed the merciful & diligent hands of Jesus to be pierced - so that His blood could redeem our hands from every evil acts & activate both our hands & our lives in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, through which the glory of God is demonstrated on the earth.
6. Blood was shed from His feet.
The 3rd nail, which pierced Jesus' feet - represents victory over oppression.
This nail is longer than the other 2 & was used to pierce both His feet, right under the anklebone.
Jesus found breathing in these conditions incredibly painful. His chest was severely compressed, meaning that He had to support the entire weight of His body on this nail, increasing the agonizing pain running through His legs.
Why did Jesus have to suffer all this for us? So that all our steps could be redeemed & become fruitful in Him, so that all who had lost their way could find it again & so that the course of our lives could be kept in holiness, full of purpose as we walk in God's guidance.
7. Blood was shed from His heart.
After Jesus breathed His last, a soldier pierced His side with a spear.
There was a sudden flow of blood & water.
Experts say that when water & blood are combined in that way inside the body, it is because the person's heart has exploded.
The anguish that Jesus suffered on the cross of Calvary was so great that His heart could not bear it.
You may think, "My heart is wounded & is pieces; my wounds run so deep." But today, Jesus is telling you, "Son, daughter, My heart exploded so that yours could be healed & so that your emotions could be restored. Return to Me & I will return to you. If you come to Me, your life will be completely different as of today."
The best decision we can make in response to all this is entrusting our hearts to Jesus, bringing all that we are to the cross & leaving our old nature there.
All of our past is left at the foot of the cross & we receive a new nature - the character of Christ in us. When we come to the cross, we discover that the arms of our loving Jesus are always wide open, ready to receive us.
The Blood Jesus shed..., I am...
through His sweat, redeemed me from betrayal.
through His crown of thorns, redeemed me from poverty.
through the whip on His back, redeemed me from sickness.
through His beard, redeemed me from low self-esteem.
through the nails on His hands, redeemed me from every evil act.
through the nails on His feet, redeemed me from oppression.
through His pierced heart, redeemed me from wounds of emotion.
REMEMBER:
EVERY DROP OF BLOOD THAT JESUS SHED HAD A SPECIFIC PURPOSE: THE FULLNESS OF MY REDEMPTION.
Walang komento:
Mag-post ng isang Komento