2 Corinthians 5:21,  "God made Him Who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."

Think

"Jesus was forsaken so we can be forgiven!" Over the past few weeks as we have talked about the "Last Words" of Jesus, we have revisited the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The persecution and pain that He endured is beyond what we can imagine.  But it wasn't until a few hours after being on the cross that Jesus actually experienced a truly overwhelming sense of darkness and abandonment; forsakenness.  In that moment He accomplished His purpose on earth as He took on the weight of the darkness of all our collective sin, a weight so intense that His Heavenly Father had to turn from it.  In the awareness of being forsaken by His own Father, Jesus literally experienced hell on earth.  Let that sink in. Thinking of this moment, we may be tempted to consider it an unfortunate occurrence that Jesus had to endure this treatment. But in this situation, we must consider WHY He did this.  That punishment didn't belong to Him, it belonged to us. The sin in our lives created a debt that we will never be able to pay. But Jesus loved us so much that He took the punishment for our sins so that we can be forgiven and made right with God.  Because Jesus did, we don't have to experience the darkness and weight of being forsaken by God because of our sin. Jesus took our sin and suffered our punishment so that we could be righteous before God!

Act

Having such a debt paid is an amazing gift that keeps on giving.  Help someone who may not know they can have their sin debt paid too. Take the time to share your story. And invite them to church this weekend to hear more about what that means for them!

Pray

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for the sacrifice of Your Son, Jesus Christ.  The punishment He took, that should have been mine, has paid my sin debt that I would never have been able to pay myself. I can never fully comprehend the enormity of what was done for me.  But I am so grateful for the righteousness I can experience because of it.  Thank You for saving me!  In Jesus' name, Amen!