Do You Truly Understand What The Lord Has Done For You?

My friends, I have a confession to make.

It's not that I've been blinded or that the truth was never there, I just haven't opened my eyes. I haven't fully understood what's in front of me.

For some time now I haven't honestly considered the Good News of Jesus.

I mean─I've been told from the start that Jesus loves me, and that he died on the cross to save me from my sins, and that this gift of salvation is open and available to anyone and everyone who calls on the name of Jesus─but very little do I sincerely reflect on the astounding truth that Christ died to save me. I've grown up in the Church, I heard the Bible stories. I accepted Jesus into my heart at summer camp. I've prayed the prayers and taken communion. I've lead Sunday school and preached three times.

BUT SERIOUSLY.

Pause with me for a moment.

Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins. This Son of God─the One who came down to earth and took on flesh─HE DIED to save YOU and HE DIED to save ME. 

You've heard it before, I know. I have too.

BUT SERIOUSLY.

This man─this man named Jesus─laid down his life to save all of sinful mankind. That includes you, and that includes me. We are beautiful individuals created in God's image, yes─but we tend to do some ugly things. And yet Jesus died for us. The perfect, pure, sinless man─he died for us. He gave up his life so I could live mine.

Maybe this just sounds so revolutionary because I've finally opened my eyes─but seriously! When you grow up with the resurrection story, when you hear it so often, it's easy to brush past the reality of what this death means for us. It's all too easy to look over the power of Christ and the life-saving truth of what this means for God's children.

In John 13, after Jesus finished washing his disciples' feet, he asked them:

"Do you understand what I have done for you?"

"You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord', and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you." (John 13:13-15)

And that's just the question. Do I truly understand what the Lord has done for me? Do you?

I'll never be able to truly comprehend the pain, the suffering, the death that Christ died to save me. I'll never understand what it feels like to carry the sins of the whole world─of every individual who ever lived. I'll never truly know because the One on the cross, that wasn't me. It was Jesus. Though I deserve the punishment for my sins, Jesus took it. Before I was even born, before I fell to the patterns of this world, Jesus saved me. He saved you. Because he knew I would sin. He knows that we live in a broken world and that we are sinful creatures.

He knows that even when our sins are made known, we will still sin. We continuously mess up, and God knew that we would, yet Christ died for us anyway. He said─your sins are forgiven. All the past sins, the preset sins, and the future. THEY'RE ALL FORGIVEN. It's not that I sinned once and Jesus cleaned up the mess. He didn't just pick up a few stray pieces of trash on the floor. I sin EVERY SINGLE DAY and Jesus took the punishment. He got bloodied and bruised, beaten and mocked. HE DIED ON THE CROSS. He took the blame for the vast and boundless landfill of garbage called my sin.

So please my friends─please. Consider with me for a moment the Good News of Jesus. We have been saved. We have received eternal life. We have a Savior and his name is Jesus.

Do you truly understand what the Lord has done for you?





[Interested in reading more? Check out the Blog Archive to the right to find links to my other posts.]