Wednesday 19 Sep 2012

Wednesday Reading: 1 Peter 2:21-25

Key Verse: 1 Peter 2:24
24  Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

Devotion:
The example that Christ has shown us by coming to earth as a human being and living amongst us must surly speak volumes to us. He was able to come and live amongst the same evil that we face every day and yet He continued to do no evil. He was able to come and live in front of the same temptations that we face and yet He committed no sin. There was not an ounce of deceit in His body – because He is God!

When Christ was faced with people mocking Him, spitting in His face, calling Him names, despising Him and even falsely accusing Him He did not retaliate against them. It was quite within His power to do so and by our standards even right for Him to respond in some manner; yet Christ chose to be still and silent and allow the world to use Him as a sacrifice for our sins. Christ chose to lay His own life down so that we would not have to pay the awful price of eternal death because of the sin that we have committed!

It is because of the stripes that He received that we are able to accept what he has done on our behalf. He took on the punishment that we deserve. He has not done anything wrong. We have.

The love that Christ has demonstrated to us must surly speak volumes to us, not just as Jews or Christians, but to every human being. How can a man who did not seem to know us turn and do something like that for us. How can a God who we deny daily turn round and show us such consistent and persistent love? How can a God lower Himself to our position in life just so that we can relate to Him and know what He has done for us? How can we then reject all that this Man, this Prophet and King, this God, our God, has done for each one of us? He has done all of this even before we got to know Him because He has known us and loved us from before we knew and loved Him. He has set into motion all that we need just so that we can accept His love, live within it and trust wholly in Him! That is my God and He can be yours too if only you will accept all that He has done – let us therefore not hide this secret but take it with us and show the rest of the world how awesome He is!

Points to Ponder:
Have you accepted His love?

Are you taking His love with you every day?