HE TOOK OUR PUNISHMENT

IOI CHRISTIAN MORNING MEAL

TOPIC: HE TOOK OUR PUNISHMENT

Isaiah 53:4-6

“But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (v. 5).

“He was pierced” – as with a spear.
“He was crushed” – pulverized, broken, ground to pieces.
“Upon him was the chastisement”— beaten with a whip.
“By his wounds” – His body cut, bruised, his skin flayed.

No other god has wounds
It is not always understood that our Lord Jesus died in terrible pain. If you run the clock back from 3 o’clock in the afternoon—the moment of his death—to about 1 o’clock in the morning and review what had happened to Jesus as he moves through those hours—what you discover is that our Lord has just been through 14 hours of torture.
Arrested in the middle of the night.
Slapped.
Pushed around.
Mocked.
Slapped again.
Crowned with thorns that went into his scalp.
Scourged with a large strap studded with bits of bone and stone and metal.
His beard ripped out.
Beaten again and again.
Forced to carry his own cross.
Nails driven through his hands and feet.
Crucified.

At this point a strange question comes to mind. Was Jesus a failure?
You could make a good case that the answer is yes. Just look at his life. He was born into an unimportant family in an unimportant village. He was ignored, he was taken for granted, he was laughed at. When he speaks, the powers that be want nothing to do with him. He faces ridicule, opposition, and misunderstanding all his life. In the end he is crucified like a criminal. His sufferings in those last few hours are unspeakable. When he dies he appears to be yet another forgotten footnote in history. Working with the facts on one level, you could make the case that our Lord was a failure.

But his death is not the end of the story.
Jesus did not fail in what he came to do.
He perfectly fulfilled the Father’s will.
His death is not the end of the story
Look what we have in return:

We have peace with God. The word means wholeness, health, the absence of war, and safety. In a messed-up world filled with broken people and broken promises, through Christ we have peace that passes all human understanding.
We are healed.
We are healed from our guilt, healed from our hatred, healed from our doubt, and healed from our shame. Through Christ broken people are put back together again.
Was Jesus a failure? No!

He took our sin, bore our pain, and through his death on the cross, he healed us from the inside out so that we now live in peace. Hallelujah

LET US PRAY
FATHER IN JESUS NAME, STOP EVERY PUNISHMENT THE DEVIL INFLICT ON US BY THE MERCY OF YOUR DEATH AND RESURRECTION IN JESUS NAME.

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Good morning friends