Author: bonniefaurote

JESUS

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FOLLOWING GOD’S WILL

Man killed Him, yes, but JESUS allowed it.  JESUS Himself sealed His own fate; He arranged for His own crucifixion.

Mark tells it so well: “Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain testimony against Jesus to put Him to death; and they were not finding any” (Mark 14:55 NASB).

JESUS broke His silence when the high priest, for a second time, gave Him the opportunity to speak: “…Again the high priest was questioning Him, and saying to Him, ‘Are You the Christ, the Son of the BlessedOne?’ And Jesus said, ‘I am; and you shall see THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER, and COMING WITH THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN.’” (Mark 14:61-62 NASB).  “And tearing his clothes, the high priest said, ‘What further need do we have of witnesses?  ‘You have heard the blasphemy…And they all condemned Him to be deserving of death” (Mark 14:63-64 NASB).

FATHER, Your Son’s obedience to Your request inspires me.  Will You ever ask me to condemn myself to death?  Probably not, but everyday You give situations where I have opportunity to condemn my self-will to death and to preform Your will.

A few verses back You conveyed to Mark the procedure You took Your SON through to make Him strong enough to follow Your will.  It is the procedure I desire You take me through every day.  It’s asking to get out of doing Your will, then submitting to it, then allowing You to strengthen me enough to walk through it.

“…He knelt down and beganto pray, saying, ‘Father, if Thou art willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Thine be done.’  Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him” (Luke 22:42-43 NASB).

As the SON of Man, JESUS could not follow Your commands without Your help.  I cannot either.  James Burton Coffman in his commentary gives an example of before and after Your strengthening.

“In John, the Lord’s majestic appearance prostrated a whole company of soldiers on their faces [John 18:6]; in the synoptics, [Gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke] he appears in utter weakness, agony, and even fear. This verse harmonizes both pictures of our Lord, the synoptics giving his state BEFORE the strengthening of the angel, and John giving it AFTER the angel’s mission was completed” (James Burton Coffman Commentaries, Luke 22:43, brackets mine).

FATHER, provide the strength I need when I commit myself to Your will.

JESUS

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DIETY HUMBLED

“…He appeared in visible form and became Man…”(1 John 3:5 AMPC)

 “In the life which Christ led upon earth, obedience was a solemn reality.  The dark and awful power that led man to revolt from his God, came upon Him too, to tempt Him.  To Him as man its offers of self-gratification were not matters of indifference; to refuse them, He had to fast and pray.  He suffered, being tempted.  He spoke very distinctly of notseeking to do His own will, as a surrender He had continually to make.  He made the keeping of the Father’s commandments the distinct object of His life, and so abode in His love” Andrew Murray (ref#266, p155).

FATHER, Your Son in His magnificence dwelt with You before time began but then emptied Himself of His godly essence to become human (Phil 2:7).  He identified with me as He spent a few years on earth.  But CHRIST is now glorified in my nature at Your right hand (ref#241, p208-209).

“The union of the divine and the human in Immanuel is the reunion of God with fallen man through the second Adam….God in my nature: my God, my brother, my friend, my counselor, my guide, my redeemer, my pattern, my all!  God in my nature: my wisdom, my righteousness, my sanctification, my redemption!…He takes my nature that He may descend to me, and He gives me His nature that I may ascend to Him.  He stoops because I could not rise” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Dec 25th)!

“If the Deity of Jesus is precious, so is His humanity; the one is of no avail in the work of redemption apart from the other…It was pure humanity, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, which He took up into intimate and indissoluble union with His Deity….Our Lord attached Himself to the woes of our nature;…It was necessary that our Lord, in order to sympathize fully with His people, should not only identify Himself with their nature, but also in some degree with their peculiar circumstances….He never instructs them to walk in a path that His own feet have not trod first and left their impressions” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, July 31st).

“His humanity lost none of the tender sympathies of our nature which clung to him so closely when on earth.  The same compassionate nature, the same loving heart, the same deep sympathy with all our sorrows, and the same outstretched hand to relieve them distinguish the glorified state of the precious Son of God” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Aug 27th).

“The human nature of Christ…still continues, and will continue to all eternity, to be both God and man” Jonathan Edwards (ref#229, p20).

JESUS

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THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD

FATHER, in the Old Covenant for a sin to be forgiven the Israelite had to place his hand on the head of a spotless young lamb that he provided and kill it.  An innocent lamb appeased Your wrath; the lamb’s blood covered the sin.

“What…the blood of the lamb was to the children of Israel, is what the atoning blood of Christ is to the believing soul” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Sept 24th).  “In the Old Testament the Israelites transferred their guilt to a lamb, and then the lamb was killed….God took your sins and mine, and He put them on the head of His own Son, and then…He killed Him” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, April 3rd).  “…the believing though trembling penitent sees all his sins cancelled and all his transgressions pardoned through the precious blood of Jesus” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Nov 19th).

“For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life”(Lev 17:11 NIV). “…the Bible reiterates in numerous scriptures that cleansing occurs through, and only through, the shedding of blood” Doug Newton (ref#166, p133).

“The atoning blood of Christ possesses the power to pardon.  Through this blood, God, the holy God against whom you have sinned…can pardon all your sins, blot out all your transgressions, and take from you the terror of a guilty conscience” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Sept 22nd).

“’One lamb shalt thou offer in the morning, and the other lamb shalt thou offer at even.’  The devout Israelite was thus taught to close the day as he began it: with a sacrifice for sin….How much in the transactions of a single day may there be that needs the evening’s confession with faith’s hand upon the evening Lamb” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, page vii)!

FATHER, since I don’t have the advantage of the Israelite of old and physically required to slaughter an innocent lamb, I am prone to forget my sins require blood to be blotted out.  CHRIST’s blood flows for me everyday—every minute canceling and pardoning my sin.  GOD, I need to thank You more!

JESUS

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THE CLEANSING AGENT

FATHER, the actual cleansing agent for my sin is the blood of JESUS.  “The blood and suffering of Christ, applied and relied on by faith, justify the sinner, silence Satan the accuser, purge the conscience from dead works, and open a way into the holiest of all….The death of Christ puts the sin to death, but delivers the sinner from it” Nathanael Vincent (ref#225, March 21st).

“The shed blood proves that a death has occurred, an appropriate sacrifice has indeed been made and confirms that the terms of God’s covenant have been met”(ref#166, p134). “Where He sees the pure heart’s blood of His own Son—so precious to Him—sprinkled on the broken, penitent heart of a poor sinner, He will pass him over in the great outpouring of His wrath” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Dec 19th).

You know, O LORD, there has been much preaching and songs written about the “blood”.  But now I understand “blood” is not the actual cleansing agent.  The term “blood” is a metonymy—it includes many elements yet we use the word “blood” to include a host of elements.

“Here are the elements of the cleansing process represented by the metonymy “blood”: faith is required—faith in what God has promised and pronounced. God has promised to credit righteousness (cleansing) to anyone who believes.  But God cannot keep that promise without making provision for the removal of sin.  He can’t remove sin by simply waving His hand as if it never occurred.  The Laws of justice which emanate from God Himself cannot be set aside and disregarded.  Justicerequires that every sin receive its due consequence.  The penaltyfor sin is death…the tiniest amount of contamination ruins everything.  But God, whose unchangeable nature is also love, cannot contradict Himself and must find a way to penalize sin without destroying His beloved creation. Somehow love and justice must work together undiminished to find a way for salvation.  And so God gave birth to the sacrificial system by which sin is transferred to a substitute whodies in the place of the guilty party. And that death must be demonstrated through the shedding of blood….the blood of the Lamb (Jesus) is precious, but the power is not in the blood as if blood is a miracle cleansing agent.  The power is ultimately in the word of God and all the things God did to make His word conform to His nature of justice and love” Doug Newton (ref#166, p135).

“The actual cleansing agent has been and always will be, just as the only agent of performing God’s will has been and always will be, the word of God—the word of God proclaimed and the Word of God incarnate” Doug Newton (ref#166, p136).

JESUS

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APPEASING WRATH

 “…the cross is the monumental display of how God can be just and still pardon guilty sinners.  At the cross, God, having imputed the sins of His people to Christ, pronounces judgment upon His Son as the representative of His people.  There on the cross God pours out the vials of His wrath unmixed with mercy until His Son cried out, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’” Albert N. Martin (ref#221, p12).

“He is treating His Son as a criminal.  He is causing Jesus to feel in the depths of His own soul all of the fury of the wrath that should be vented upon us” Albert N. Martin (ref#221, p12).

“We begin to take seriously that we have dared to defy the God Who consigned angels to everlasting darkness when they rebelled against Him” Albert N. Martin (ref#221. p13).

“The cross of Jesus displays the most awful exhibition of God’s hatred of sin and, at the same time, the most impressive manifestation of His readiness to pardon it….The death of Jesus was the opening and emptying of the full heart of God; it was the outpouring of that ocean of infinite mercy that longed for an outlet; it was God showing how He could love a poor guilty sinner” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Sept 29th).

FATHER, You used Your own Son to propitiate Your wrath toward us.  “propitiate– to cause to become favorably inclined; win or regain the good will of; appease or conciliate…” (ref#110, p1079).  May I daily contemplate CHRIST’s suffering for my sins and offer thanks for such love from Him and You.

JESUS

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REASONS FOR THE APPEARING OF JESUS

Did JESUS come to appease an angry GOD?  From a human viewpoint that makes sense because I know I am a sinner and certainly GOD is not pleased with me.  But, no, “He has come to lift the veil and reveal the heart of a gracious, sin-pardoning God.  He declaring that the ‘Father Himself loves us,’ and that ‘he that hath seen me,’ so full of grace, ‘hath seen the Father’ (John 14:9); in other words, He affirms that He is a copy, or a representation, of the Father.  The love, grace, truth, holiness, power, compassion, and tenderness exhibited in such fullness of supply by Jesus, and distributed by Him so profusely, had their origin and their counterpart in God” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, April 24th).

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature…”(Heb 1:3 ESV).

“Why did God bruise his Son and bring him to grief?  He did it to resolve the dissonance between his love for his glory and his love for sinners….God-dishonoring sin could not be ignored….Because God loves the honor of his name….his Son…will demonstrate to all the world the infinite worth of the Father’s glory” John Piper (ref#220, p161).

“Righteousness and the glory of God are his passion….He came from heaven primarily to vindicate God’s glory and God’s honour, and not just to save us….the great motive was the glory of God, which had been violated by the Devil and by sin….His anger is roused against the enemies of his holy and righteous Father” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#265, p271).

“Jesus wants us to see that his willingness to lose his life is because of his love for the glory of the Father” John Piper (ref#220, p165).  “In that very moment when the Son was taking upon himself everything that God hates in us, and God was forsaking him to death, even then the Father knew that the measure of his Son’s suffering was the depth of his Son’s love for the Father’s glory” John Piper (ref#220, p176).

So, FATHER, to give You the deepest pleasure I need to give my life for Your glory—as one willing to show how much I love You.  Make me make it so.

JESUS

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THE RESTORER

FATHER, the making of creation in six days is amazing enough but the love You show me in my recreation is beyond phenomenal!

“…the work of restoration is a greater achievement of power than was the work of creation….In one day He [GOD] made man; He spent four thousand years redeeming man.  It cost Him nothing to create a soul; it cost Him His dear Son to save it….He met with no opposition in creating man; in re-creating him, Satan, the world, and man himself are against Him” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, May 4th, brackets mine).

“…behold what sinhas done!  Man has lost his original resemblance to God.  It is true, he still retains his spiritual, intelligent, and immortal nature: these he can never lose.  But his moral likeness to God—his knowledge, purity, justice, truth, and love—is blotted from his soul; darkness, impurity desolation, and death reign there instead. With the obliteration of his moral resemblance, the soul has lost all love to God….there is not only the absence of love, but there is active enmity….Man has revolted from God, and, having thrown off all allegiance to Him as his sovereign, he seeks to be a god to himself….This being the moral destitution of man, God has ceased to dwell in him;…it is impossible for God to make your heart His dwelling place while every thought, feeling, and passion is up in arms against Him, as it would be for Christ to dwell with Satan, or light to mingle with darkness.  You must be renewed in the spirit of your mind.  You must be born again” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, May 3rd).

“Here is a world that has rebelled against God.  It spat into His holy face; in arrogance it lifted itself up against Him; it said, ‘I have a right to be equal with God.’ Now, a world like that deserves nothing by punishment; it deserves perdition.  Yet into that very world…God sent His Son…His very appearing and coming…is proof that God loves us” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#211, p67).

“’For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”(John 3:16 ESV).

JESUS

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THE DIVINE REMEDY FOR SIN

“A biblical Christian is one who has seriously considered the one divine remedy for sin….all of our true help comes down from above and meets us where we are” Albert N. Martin (ref#221, p9).

FATHER, I lose my way around the Bible if I take my eyes off JESUS (Alistair Begg). When GOD first spoke of evil in Gen 3:15, He announced His remedy to defeat the now prince of the power of earth’s air, satan.  A descendent of Adam would crush his head.  Throughout the Old Testament, I see glimpses of GOD working out His plan until finally JESUS, born of a woman (Adam’s descendent) comes to earth.  The entire Bible presents GOD’s plan to redeem men back to Him.  It portrays a loving GOD’s effort to save a people for Himself.

There are few passages that capture the disaster of sin and what it does to people made in God’s image better than Genesis 6:5-6:

“The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” (ESV)

“Note two things from this passage.  First, the affect of sin on people was deep, heart deep.  Sin is not just a matter of bad behavior.  It is a condition of the heart.  That’s why you cannot free yourself from it.  Second, the effects of sin on you and me are comprehensive. Note the words ‘every intention’ coupled with the words ‘only evil continually.’  But the passage tells us more.  God was not satisfied leaving us in the disaster of sin.  The disease that infected the heart of every human being produced sorrow in his heart.  But his sorrow was not just the sorrow of remorse or the sorrow of judgment; it was the sorrow of grace.  The words of Genesis 6:8—‘But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD’—tell you that Genesis 6 is not the end of the story.  God would not just punish sin; he would raise up a nation out of which his Son would come to live and die to deliver us from it.  The cross of his Son stands as a lasting reminder of just how desperate our need is for the grace that that cross represents” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Feb 29th).

“…’there is no condemnation’ to a poor soul that shelters itself beneath the cross of Jesus” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, May 5th).