'God put his love on the line...while we were of no use whatever to him.' ROMANS 5:8
Telling of his experience as a prisoner of war, Ernest Gordon related how after work one evening a guard noticed a shovel missing. Insisting one of the prisoners had stolen it, he screamed for the guilty party to come forward. Then he prepared to kill them one by one until someone confessed. Suddenly a Scottish soldier broke rank, stood to attention and said, 'I did it.' The guard beat him to death on the spot. When he'd exhausted his fury the other POW's picked up their friend's body along with their tools and returned to camp. At that point the shovels were re-counted. The guard was wrong. None was missing.
What kind of person would take the blame for something he didn't do? Christ! 'We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for...how someone...noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his son...while we were of no use whatever to him' (Romans 5:7-8 TM). Think about it, 'God...piled...everything we've done wrong, on him' (Isaiah 53:6 TM), hence the only 'Mediator who can reconcile God and [man]... Jesus' (1Timothy 2:5 NLT). A mediator reconciles differences and negotiates agreements between two parties. At Calvary Jesus stood between God's anger and the punishment for our sins. Having lived the life we couldn't live, then taking the punishment we couldn't escape, He freely offers us redemption we couldn't afford.
Now the question is: if He so loved us, can we not love each other? Having been forgiven, can we not forgive? Having feasted at the table of mercy can we not share a few crumbs?
From: The Word for Today at http://www.ucb.co.uk/index.cfm?sectionid=3
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