To fall on Him

"All of us like sheep have gone astray,

 Each of us has turned to his own way;

But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him."

Isaiah 53:6

Last night in Bible study we were discussing King Ahab from 1 Kings 19.  He was a wicked, wicked, man with an even more evil wife.  He killed the prophets of the Lord and worshipped false gods.  He hated Elijah and wanted him killed.  The Bible says that He did more evil than any other king before him. But at the very end of his life when judgement was being pronounced upon him, he humbled himself and the Lord delayed the judgement to the next generation. 

Just like that? This evil man gets off the hook for a lifetime of evil with a last minute heart of humility?  The mercy of God is so hard for me to grasp sometimes.  And yet, it makes me so, so thankful.  I am praying for a heart like His - willing to give mercy to anyone. At any time. For any reason - or for no reason at all.  (Quick definition of mercy - not getting what we deserve.) 

We were talking about different villains throughout history and how we would feel if they repented and turned to Jesus.  Would we rejoice? Or would we have a hard time with the fact that they weren't getting the punishment we thought they deserved? 

And then I thought about the cross.  And I thought about the high price God paid to show mercy to sinners.  He isn't just a jolly cosmic grandpa who sweeps our sins under the rug without a second thought - don't worry honey, we all make mistakes.  He doesn't make mistakes, and our sin is repulsive to Him.  

Our sin had to be dealt with. Someone had to die in order for the Holiness of God to be vindicated.  So He created the only situation in the entire universe that would work in order for God to demonstrate His perfect holiness and perfect love all at the same time.  

He punished sin. 

But He did not punish us. 

At the cross, God poured out the weight of all His wrath towards our rebellion and sin on the only One who was not guilty of it.  The only person who could take the punishment without being deserving of it. 

Jesus. 

"But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering..." 

Isaiah 53:10

This is the glory of the gospel.  God's wrath toward sin is satisfied and His love for sinners is poured out - all at the same time.  Sin is punished. Sinners are given the oppurtunity to be forgiven - because Jesus died the death we all deserve.  

Forsaken

In my Monday night Bible study we are doing a study on the Kings and Prophets of the Old Testament.  This morning I was in 2 Chronicles 12 reading about how Rehoboam and the people forsook God.  Turned their back on him.  Their hearts weren't set to obey him, so they turned to evil.

So God forsook them.
Oh.  It literatly makes my stomach drop to think about what it would be like to be forsaken by God.

Then they humbled themselves and God had mercy on them.  He is so unbelievably compassionate.  The God of a thousand chances.

Then I turned over to read a little bit in Isaiah 53 and this jumped out at me:

"He was despised and forsaken of men."

Forsaken.  Jesus was forsaken.  By us.
And since Jesus is God, it was like I was basically reading the 2 Chronicles story all over again.  There we go, turn our backs on God and rejecting the One who made us.
Man has been forsaking God since the beginning of time.  It's so humbling to be reminded that we love only because He loved first.  We have been going our own way, doing our own thing continuously and we are completely at His mercy to draw our hearts back.

We can't really appreciate the glory of the cross and the resurrection until we recognize how truly lost and depraved we are.

"And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.  Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, 

even as the rest. 

But God,

being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."

Ephesians 2:1-7

Out of parched ground

Isaiah 53:1-2
"Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground.  He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him."

I haven't been able to get this phrase out of my mind: for He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground."
I keep rolling it around in my head, pressing it for meaning, praying for understanding.

This is the one thing I know about that statement that keeps coming back to me...

roots don't grow out of parched ground.

Just like life can't come out of death.

And a virgin can't conceive a child...much less the embryo of God.

Yet all these things have happened and the hope of my life now and for eternity is resting on the shoulderss of these impossibilities; spinning on the axis of things that never should have happened, could not have happened.  Without God.

So as I'm thinking about Jesus this morning, I'm being renewed by the truths of His ability to not only do the impossible, but that the essence of His character is to be the unthinkable. God. But man.  Infintite. Yet confined to need to be born, fed, to sleep, and drink.
And to do the ultimate impossibility of all - to make us righteous before a holy God.  He didn't just sweep our sins under the cosmic rug of the universe and pretend they never happened.  No, He humbled Himself to be punished as though He was the one who had done all the sins ever committed - and for a glorious trade - so we who believe would be treated and seen by God as though we had only ever done the righteous acts of Jesus Christ.

This is a glorious and true and impossible thing that I'm praising God for today.  And in a very personal way I'm asking Him to search my heart for dead things and to make them alive.  To bring some fresh and strong roots out of the parched ground in my heart.  Because this Easter I don't just want to celebrate new life in a general sense but in a personal, this-is-something-God-has-been-doing-in-my-own-heart kind of way.
Because I know for me, I can "be" something without really being it.
I became a wife two years ago, but I am learning to really be a helping, loving, and gracious wife.
I became a mom a few months ago, but I am very aware of the the fact that I will be learning how to really mother for the rest of my life.
I am alive in Jesus Christ, but I am still learning to let Him really bring to life every cell and fiber of my being so I can truly be alive.  

As I was sitting out on my porch thinking about roots and parched ground, I lookded into our backyard and saw this.  A lone daffodil.  Growing out in our yard that is dry and shady and grows nothing.  Perfect example? I think yes. 

Preparing for Easter

I realized a few years ago that Easter is one of those holidays that always seems to slip up on me.

I mean, there are certain ones you just can't miss - like Christmas.  The lights, music, malls tricked out to no end with ornaments and trees, parties, etc., etc.  And with the way the stores start getting ready pretty much as early as labor day, I feel like I get a pretty good heads up to start preparing my heart to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas.

But Easter always gets me.  And I hate that because it really is one of my absolute favorite holidays. How could it not be?  The whole reason I experience such joy and deep peace daily is because of what we celebrate on that day.  Jesus is alive! Currently!  He didn't just rise from the dead but then kind of disappear into oblivion, He is, right now, interceding on my behalf to the Father.  Amazing.

Easter is a big deal.  And so for the past few years I've been trying to figure out ways to start celebrating and preparing my heart at least a month before we actually get to "Passion Week" on the calendar.

Here are a few things I've come up with:

• Reading through the different gospel accounts of Jesus heading to the cross

• Reading, memorizing, meditating on Isaiah 53

• As a part of my devotions in the morning, I've started reading through this book. It has excerpts from a bunch of different books and writings that all have to do with the cross.  Authors include Charles Spurgeon, John Piper, Martin Luther, CJ Mahaney, and Augustine.  It's really great. 

I'm trying to also brainstorm ways to help Levi and all my other future babies prepare to celebrate Easter, as soon as they are old enough to start understanding.

What do you do to celebrate Easter and to prepare for it beforehand?