Even Me

I wonder if you have the same reaction to this passage that I sometimes do?

“This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men... Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:23, 36).

Isn’t it tempting to think, “Yes, Peter! Stick it to those unbelieving Jews and Romans who killed Jesus!”? And yet, if it weren’t for my sin (and yours) Jesus would not have had to die. “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). And “For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). That realization shouldn’t lead to pride in my accomplishments or disdain for unbelievers. It should lead to humble gratitude for the eternal life we have received by the grace and mercy of God. “[He] was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25).

On prideful days, I can be like the Pharisee who prayed, “God, I thank You that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector” (Luke 18:11), when I should be praying, “Thank You for being merciful to me, a sinner!”

Some days I identify more with Paul’s proclamation, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life” (1 Tim. 1:15-16). Paul knew what he was talking about, although I think we are each the “foremost of sinners.” Any sin against the perfectly holy and righteous God is worthy of eternal damnation. Whether our personal sin debt was a penny or a thousand dollars, it required the life of the perfect sacrifice, Jesus Christ, to redeem us.

As we come to Good Friday and Easter, let us not forget that we aren’t invited into God’s family because we’re so great and have so much to offer Him. We are here only because He first loved us and chose to ransom us by death and resurrection of Christ. “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

“The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging Him on a tree. God exalted Him at His right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:30-31). “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17).

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Broken

“Trust Him in all this brokenness. It is a gift” (Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way).

I’m tired of brokenness.
I’m tired of a broken world,
  culture,
    system.
I’m tired of broken people
  breaking people,
Broken by sin,
  sickness,
    death.
I’m tired of being broken.
I don’t want to be weak,
  needy,
    dependent.
I’m tired of the pangs of sorrow,
  shame,
    anger,
      pain.
I want to feel strong,
  capable,
    prepared.
But You love the broken,
  the weak,
    the needy,
      the anxious.
You bind up the broken,
  use the humble,
    save the sinful.
Unless the ground
  is broken
    it cannot accept the seed.
Unless the grain of wheat
  is broken
    it cannot multiply.
Unless the grains
  are broken
    there is no bread.
Unless the grapes
  are crushed
    there is no wine.
Unless the Lord
  was broken
    there is no Savior.
Unless His blood
  was spilled out
    there is no redemption.
Unless the proud,
  self-sufficient,
    sinful
      are broken
        there is no mercy.
Broken is the gift
  we didn’t ask for,
    didn’t want,
      desperately need.
Broken is where
  He meets us,
    calls us,
      saves us.
Broken is where
  we find Him,
    see Him,
      cling to Him.
In the Broken One
  is where we find life,
    breath,
      hope,
        peace.
In the Broken One
  is where we live,
    and move,
      and have our being.

“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15 ESV).



© 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Worth It All

Three authors I’ve read recently have said similar things:

“He would rather go to hell for you than go to heaven without you” (Max Lucado, And the Angels Were Silent, 155).

“To lose us was too great a pain for God to bear, and so he took it upon himself to rescue us” (John Eldredge, Waking the Dead, 61).

“Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2 ESV).

Have you ever thought about the fact that the joy of granting us salvation and reconciliation to God made the cross bearable for Jesus? He endured hours of unimaginable torture in order to give us eternal life. God didn’t have to give us the ability to choose sin, but He did. God didn’t have to send His Son to die for us, but He did. God could have left us as mortal creatures with just one short life to follow Him.

Dennis Jernigan wrote:

“He gave His Son, Jesus, to bear the punishment and pay the debt we owed because of our sin. He rose that we might rise from the death of sin in our own lives. He gave us a free will and man sinned. It is we who separated ourselves from God. He did not separate Himself from us. We are the lost ones. He is the One Who finds us!” (Daily Devotions for Kingdom Seekers, Sept. 7).

If I were God, I don’t think I would have done it this way. I would probably have made a perfect paradise from the beginning and skipped all the drama of sin and redemption. I have to assume that God’s plan maximizes the glory He receives. Perfect, sinless creatures have their place, but they can’t express gratitude for salvation if they have nothing to be saved from. As the old song says, Amazing Grace is one song the angels cannot sing.

I don’t know why He did it like He did, though as one of the creatures in this fallen world I’m certainly glad that this is not the end of our story. I can’t begin to fathom a love that says, “This is the perfect way to create this world. All this pain and trouble will be worth it all just so My chosen people can be made worthy to dwell with Me forever.” Somehow, in His sovereign wisdom, God decided this was the best plan. All we can do is give thanks.

“How precious is Your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of Your wings” (Psalm 36:7).

“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb! …Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever” (Rev. 7:10, 12).

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com.

Behold the Lamb

John the Baptist, when he saw Jesus coming toward him said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29 ESV). He is the only one who directly referred to Jesus as the Lamb of God. The Apostle John in Revelation 5:6 described Jesus as the Lamb that had been slain. Back in Genesis, when Abraham was taking Isaac to sacrifice him as God had commanded, told his son, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering” (Gen. 22:8). Jesus is God’s sacrificial Lamb because only God can provide the permanent, perfect sacrifice.

The Old Testament sacrificial system was never intended to provide lasting atonement. It was simply a temporary measure to point people back to God. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice because He was the perfect man. “He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since He did this once for all when He offered up Himself” (Hebrews 7:27). “For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God” (Romans 6:10). “And by [His] will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all... For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:10, 14). I love this reminder that sanctification is “already but not yet.”

It is divine irony that when Jesus was presented at the Temple Joseph and Mary could not afford a lamb to sacrifice, but instead offered a pair of doves in accordance with the Law (Luke 2:24 and Leviticus 12:8). I’m sure as Mary pondered these things later in life she understood that the real sacrifice that day was not her small offering but the Lamb of God given to her and given through her for the sake of the world.

“For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7b). He became our Passover Lamb because He was first God’s Lamb. “[You] were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

In the Master’s plan, the Lamb of God is also the Good Shepherd (John 10). Who can better understand the needs of the sheep than One who has walked among us, was tempted in every way as we are yet without sin, and then laid down His life for us?

“It is He who made us and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture” (Psalm 100:3).

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com.

What If?

Some time ago when I was reading through the Old Testament I noticed something new. Chapter 11 of 2 Samuel tells the story of David and Bathsheba, and it lists Bathsheba’s husband as Uriah the Hittite. However, if we go back to Exodus 34:11-12 God’s command to the Israelites was repeated: “Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst” (ESV).

In the rest of Exodus and on through Joshua and Judges, we see how the inhabitants did indeed become a snare to the Israelites and caused one problem after another. But by the time of the kings there were Hittites among David’s armies, and men of several nationalities were listed among David’s mighty men in 2 Samuel 23, including Uriah. He was one of the outstanding men supporting David, and yet David chose to sacrifice him to cover up his own sin with Bathsheba.

All that made me wonder—what if the Israelites had obeyed God in destroying the nations inhabiting the Promised Land? Although the initial conquest would have taken more time and effort, later conflicts could have been avoided. And if Uriah the Hittite had not been in Israel, would David have been tempted to sin with Bathsheba or whoever his next door neighbor was? What would have happened to the lineage of Christ?

We could speculate for eternity with “what ifs,” but we have to remember that God is both sovereign and omniscient. He knows the end from the beginning, and even the disobedience of the Israelites played into His perfect plan for the birth, death, and resurrection of His Son and the salvation of His chosen people. God has a perfect track record for using the consequences of sin to bring about His own purposes. We tend to think of redemption primarily in terms of the salvation of souls, but Scripture talks repeatedly about redeemed lives. God didn’t just purchase our souls, but our entire lives—the good, the bad, and the ugly. “All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6), and yet God not only saves us but redeems our mistakes to turn them into something beautiful and productive. He uses each event to shape us into the image of Christ so we can better reflect Him to those around us.

In Isaiah 61, part of which is later quoted by Jesus at the beginning of His ministry, God promises “to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor” (Isaiah 61:3 NIV). Despite all the times Israel disobeyed God, still God turned the ashes of their brokenness into something beautiful that He could use, and it was all for the display of His glory. He continues to do the same thing through us today. When we confess our sin we discover the beauty of God’s mercy and love. When others sin against us we see the wonder of reconciliation. When we suffer loss we know the sufficiency of God’s provision.

It’s hard to wrap our minds around the fact that God allows sin and difficulty in our lives because it will ultimately bring glory to Him. I’m sure as a young man David wasn’t thrilled with having to run from King Saul, and later he would have done anything to undo his sin against Bathsheba and Uriah, but just think how many of the psalms would not be in the Bible if everything in his life had gone smoothly. As it is, his testimony of God’s faithfulness is a valuable reminder to the rest of us. Scripture is full of examples of God’s glorious works on behalf of wounded and sinful people. May we be encouraged to know that God is in control and He works all things together for our good and His glory.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time” –Ecclesiastes 3:11a