GOD’S WORD FOR DECEMBER 30 ~ ~ Isaiah 41:10 ~ ~ “Do not fear, for I am with you;
Do not be afraid, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, I will also help you,
I will also uphold you with My righteous right hand.”
We know of the cross, of the Resurrection, but how much do we know about what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before Christ was crucified? The Bible tells us that Our Lord was in agony, to the point of sweating great drops of blood.
He prayed to His Father that this cup would be taken from Him, if possible, but then His great love for you and me caused Him to willingly take the cup. What cup? Many assume He meant the agony of dying on the cross. Partly, that was true, but I don’t believe that was the primary dread on His mind. He, no doubt, had seen crucifixions, He knew what He was in for, but there was something far more important on His mind right then.
That important thing was His future Bride. His Bride that was to become His as a result of what was going to happen the next day. But the great joy in knowing this was blackened by the knowledge of what she will have to suffer before they can become one.
The Bride I speak of, of course, is the Christian church. That body of people who have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. The people who have gone down the strait and narrow path that He spoke of in Matthew 7:13 &14. Those who have submitted their entire body, mind and spirit to His Lordship, wanting ONLY HIS WILL in their lives and that of their loved ones. These people, drawn together by His love, make up the Bride of Christ.
Just as any man cannot stand to see His bride suffer, and will do anything in his power to take it away, Jesus wanted to take away the pain and suffering that He knew His bride will have to suffer throughout life on earth. Just as any man would want to take the place of his bride and take the pain onto himself, Jesus yearned so much for this!!!! And, as part of the Great Plan, He did just that!!!!!!
In that Garden, Jesus BECAME each of us in a sense…..He took on your sin and my sin, and with it, He took on the consequences, the disease, pain, filthiness, the rejection by others, the handicaps, the loneliness and sadness and dread. He took on the pain of the innocent ones as well as those who have grossly sinned because the sin of the world has oozed in every crack and crevice of mankind and corrupted everything on the earth!!!!!
So, when we ask, why do the innocent suffer…..it is because of the corruption of the earth by sin. But, a better question would be…why did Jesus suffer…..the innocent of the innocent…..Almighty God, no less,…..He suffered incredibly before he was ever nailed to the cross. The pain of the nails and the whips could only give pain to His physical body, but the pain of knowing that you will have to suffer, tore Him down to His very being….to His very life……to His heart of LOVE, and it was almost more than His spirit could take. His love for you is that great, that it almost killed Him. The angels had to come to minister to Him……they didn’t even do that during the scourging and crucifixion….this was much worse!!! He loves you so much that if you were the only person on earth, He would have died for you. GOD would have died for YOU!!! Just YOU….He DID just that. Think about that!!! Do you still think after all that, He would let you suffer alone?
When you have to go through whatever you are enduring, He is taking your burden still. Oh, dear one, you have no idea what it would be like if He wasn’t taking the weight for you!!!! He is sheltering you, protecting you, and He can take an even greater weight off you if you will come to Him and ask for it.
Please, if you haven’t, ask Him into your heart, and submit to Him your whole being, and your situation. Don’t let Him have gone through what He did for nothing….Accept the Gift He offers you, and be one with Him, as He intended for you. All you need to do is talk to Him from your heart, and tell Him how you feel. Spend time with Him alone, and you will be able to hear His voice in your spirit.
Keep your spiritual eyes on Him and your spirit will revive and see Him holding you up.