As someone who grew up in a home hearing about Easter and John 3:16, I often wonder if I have become numb to the significance of what happened on the cross.
Not only did my Savior die, but He was mocked and spit on. He was beaten. His clothes were divided up by casting lots.
Why? For me. For my sin and shame.
In our world, sin is a very lightly taken issue. We don't want to offend anyone, after all. Anything goes and not a week goes by that I am not amazed of how numb people are to right and wrong. Wrong is twisted to seem right and right, well, that is a subjective matter.
Our sin is a big issue, ya'll! It separates us from God. We literally cannot get to Him on our own. Our sin is just too dark and deep. But God....
On that Friday, He hung on a cross and bridged that gap between us and God. He held the weight of all human sin, past, present, and future.
Think on that for a moment. EVERY sin you ever committed, he took on. Now multiply that times a kazillion and you have everyone.
That is not a small price. Our sin is heavy and expensive. Jesus had to literally die for it. And not just a normal death. He had to hang on a cross and bear the agony and horror of it for us.
Understand this, beloved, you were bought at a price.
Do we live that way? Do we love others, believers and non-believers alike, with the understanding that they too were bought at a price? Does our sin bring us sorrow? Does the sin of the world pain us? Do we live in this world, but are not of it?
We should.
The problem is that I don't think we do.
I think we sometimes get this attitude like our sin is not as bad as someone else's. I think we make light of evil and darkness in this world because we don't have time or it isn't our problem. I think we make excuses for our own sin to dampen the effects. I think we love the convenient and the lovable, but the broken and "sinful" are not our concern.
We are created to live free and loved. We are also created to love others that way ... as free and loved.
I want to see people the way Jesus did when He hung on that cross. As people in need of a Savior. I want to love someone enough to be willing to die. Not just physically, but to my desires and will. I want to carry the weight of being bought at a price so that I am not tempted to boast in anything or anyone but Christ.
He paid it all and now, all to Him I owe. I was bought at a price.
