While watching worship videos on GodTube, I came across another video showing Jesus battered and bruised carrying the cross. I immediately apologized again for the suffering He went through for my sins, but then I was very thankful for this event, because it is the same event that saved me from damnation. I guess you could say when Jesus died it was bitter sweet.
It is hard for someone that loves Christ as I do to think about Him dying in such a horrible way, but what would we do without a savior? For years I have put off reading the book of Job, because I had been taught the life of Job growing up in church, and I knew the great afflictions that Job suffered. It is true, we not only despise our own suffering, we try not to be around the sufferings of others as well. The first morning in reading Job, his life played out just as I remembered, and as I was ending the day’s session in chapter 9. I read the following verses which had such a tremendous impact (Job 9:32-35 God is not a man like me that I might answer him, that we might confront each other in court. If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it stands now, I cannot.)
God really spoke to me during these last verses of chapter 9. Job knew no one was righteous enough to stand before God, no matter how he tried. Job expressed that if he only had an arbitrator to speak on his behalf, if he only had someone to spare him from the rod of God, he could speak to God without fear.
Of course we know years later God did send His son Jesus to be that Arbitrator. By Jesus dying on the cross, Jesus is now able to intercede on our behalf – through His suffering. (Isaiah 53:4-5 He certainly has taken upon himself our suffering and carried our sorrows, but we thought that God had wounded him, beat him, and punished him. But it was for our sins he was wounded, and for our evil doings he was crushed: he took the punishment by which we have peace, and by his wounds we are healed.)
Wow, we can appreciate Job speaking wisdom during the most trying time in his life, and realize just how sweet we now have it. I can’t imagine going through life without Jesus to turn to. How do lost people make it through their day? Think about the most trying times in your life and how you were able to get through them. As Christians we have the most precious hope. Even faced with our own mortality, we can praise God for the hope of eternal life. Not only that, think about our sins. The only way I can make it through another day is in knowing that when I ask God to forgive me, He places my sins as far as the east is from the west. If we didn’t have Jesus, how could we face ourselves in the mirror? How could we get past our shame?
We are able to find joy and sweetness in Jesus’ willingness to suffer for us. That my friend is bitter sweet!!!
Romans 10:11
"Anyone who trusts in him (Jesus) will never be put to shame.”
Thank you Sweet Jesus!!!