This morning we were worshiping at home as a family and my husband played one of my favorite songs...
Death Was Arrested
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMsMiluCUUI
...and one of the lines stood out in my mind in a whole new way.
"My shame was a ransom he faithfully bore"
It occurred to me, not necessarily for the very first time, but just in such a new perspective, that every pain or guilt that I have ever felt, God can relate, not only because He created us and cares for us, not only because He came to earth in flesh through Jesus, but because He literally felt it on the cross...!!!
So often one of the big questions of theology is why would God let bad things happen. There are many philosophies trying to explain this. But if we can let that question go for just a minute, and remember that God personally carried every ounce of suffering with Him to the cross...that is a powerful image. We don't experience our suffering on our own, Jesus has also experienced any suffering we will ever know. It's such a powerful realization that I can't even fully get my head around it or explain it.
Several years ago I did an in depth personal study on the Gospel of John, specifically the words of Jesus captured there. Through that study I came to understand that sin (or evil) is simply anything apart from God, and also from that and other lessons, to understand that blessing is simply being in the presence of God. We tend to make both of those ideas either too complicated or too specific. They are big ideas, but also very simple. I think we get very distracted by that question and miss the amazing fact that not only do we feel it, but He felt it too.
When Jesus went to the cross, He felt the pain of being separated from God the Father because He carried all the "sin of the world" (John 1:29) - every experience in every life that ever separated a person from God the Father. And when He rose from the grave He had extinguished all those sufferings and what remains is the opportunity to live a life fully in the presence of God through His Holy Spirit - to be blessed.
If we elect to live in sin apart from God - either by intent or neglect - it is our own choice to waste His gift. This can manifest itself in so many different ways - some deceitfully attractive and some deplorably repulsive. But if it is apart from God it is sin. And if we choose to live in blessing in the presence of God by accepting the gift of Jesus, it is by His grace alone that this is available to us. We can know that whatever pain or guilt we ever bear, that it once rested upon His shoulders and has no effect on our relationship with Him any more - for simply being in God's presence is blessing.
Will you choose His presence today?
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