Thursday 3 Jan 2012

Thursday Reading: Matthew 9:10-13

Key Verse: Matthew 9:12
12  But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

Devotion:
One of the best things that we can understand about why Christ came to earth is simply that He came to save sinners! He did come to glorify anyone who was perfect or to find out who was perfect because He already knew that we were and are all sinners; instead Christ came to save us all, sinners, from our deserved death sentence!

To many that may sound a bit harsh but it is the sad reality about our lives on earth, that we are all sinners and that we all do deserve to die because of our sin. I’m not going to go through the Bible to show you how many places it describes us as sinners, unclean or deserving of death because we all know that deep inside already. Instead I want to highlight the fact that Christ Himself reminded us all that He came because we needed to be saved from our sin. He knew the awful state that we are in and He knew that the only way we can be saved is for Him to be the perfect sacrifice in our stead!

I thank Him that He was willing to do that for me, even before I knew Him, and that His payment was in full and lacked nothing. I thank Him because He has shown me His mercy day after day whilst I was sinning. I thank Him because He has given me the strength to stand up to that sin and bring it to Him. I thank Him for the wonderful love that he has brought into my life. But I don’t know if I will actually ever really know just how much of a price he had to pay for my sin. We know we are sinners and we accept that as being so. Because we are sinners and do not know anything else we don’t really know what it is like not to have sin so bringing sin into our lives is just normal – For Christ it most certainly was anything but normal!

We rely on doctors and dentists and many other kinds of physicians to heal us and to assist us so that we can continue to live our lives. We often take them for granted because we think that we are paying enough somewhere along the line. But imagine what life would be like if we did not have any physicians whatsoever? Christ knew what was required and was willing to pay a terrible price just for us. Praise God!

Points to Ponder:
What do you do when you feel ill?

Do you call out to Christ when you feel tempted?