Many people think Christianity is:
I do whatever I want & however I want. And, God exists to help me accomplish my dreams & goals for my life.
However, Biblical Christianity is:
Jesus saves me from my self. And, I exist to do whatever God calls me to for His Kingdom & glory.
@aprilerussell @roydjaquez @wendelltalks There’s a danger of misinterpreting scripture if you take just the this passage on its own, please read the verses before and after to get full context and understanding.
I still remember the first day I ever heard the words to "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross". At the time, I was like any teenage boy in my class, laughing and scoffing at any attempt by a proper grown-up to tell me something apparently profound about my (or anyone’s) life. We revelled in sniggering at the earnestness of those who claimed there could be something truly worth living for, let alone those who claimed there could be something worth dying for.
This one day, one of our teachers was giving one of those little speeches to our class, the kind of profound-sounding speech that would always induce yawns or sniggers. This teacher was talking through the words of that famous old hymn, saying how the truth of it seemed to grip him and move him in a unique way, how he could never quite get over it however many times he heard it. He got to the words, "See from his head, his hands, his feet / Sorrow and love flow mingled down / Did e'er such love and sorrow meet / Nor thorns compose so rich a crown?" I found myself strangely compelled, without feeling able to show it. I couldn't say I fully understood what those words meant yet somehow I felt I knew something important about them. They spoke of something I'd never heard before as though it was something I had always been yearning to hear, as though it was almost too powerful not to be true.
The teacher went on, barely managing to get the last few words out because he was properly choking up: "Love so amazing, so divine / Demands my soul, my life, my all." There were full tears in his eyes as he said those final lines. It didn't seem to matter to him that he was standing before one of history's most unimpressible audiences. And yet this time, there was no mockery, just silence. Not a scoff in sight. I think it was more than just me who felt something true about those words, who felt that, after all, there just might even be something so worth living for that it could be worth dying for.
The One for whom those words were written faced an even more unimpressible audience than existentially repressed teenage boys. He faced the jeers and scoffs of a crowd baying for his blood. This crowd knew nothing about just how precious that man's blood was, how much it cost to shed it, and how much it would mean for the rest of human history and all eternity. That man could have chosen to come down from where he hung, could have shut up every scoffer in an instant. But he chose to stay up there, to suffer unjustly for the very people who put him there. He did so in order to bring about a more profound justice than any human will or political system could ever imagine. The moment when that man said "It is finished" was the single greatest accomplishment by any person who has ever lived.
After that teacher's speech, after the unexpected silence, I could have done something about it. I didn't. It seemed too unthinkable to do something about it. Too big. Too frightening. Soon enough I would be back in the school corridors again, back in the “real world” where profound thoughts about the meaning of life need not apply, where epic, cosmic sacrifice is not required. It would be several years before I finally gave in to the One who hung on that wondrous cross, the One whose amazing love could simultaneously require nothing from me and yet demand everything of me. This was not the first time that I'd turn my face away from Him and pretend it would all be fine.
How about you? How many times have you heard about the Cross and been bored by it? How many times have you scoffed at it? However many times it's been, there's still time, for now. There's still time to follow the One who hung on it, and who calls you to take up your own for His sake. But there will not always be time. The prince of glory died on that cross, but he will return one day as the king of glory, and He will not permit scoffers to scoff forever.
WHY IS #GOODFRIDAY GOOD?
The physical, emotional, and psychological torture of Jesus is hard to read.
🩸Not because of HOW he died but WHY he died. For YOU reading this RIGHT NOW.
“But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes, we are healed.”
READ ALL ✍️ (from many sources)
According to Scripture, Christ was struck, buffeted and scourged.
Jesus was smote” here as “to flay,” meaning Christ’s skin was RIPPED from his body during the beating.
🩸HE WAS FLOGGED WITH FURY
Sometimes, a victim’s back was “so shredded that part of the SPINE was [...] exposed by the deep, deep cuts.”
Not only was the flaying agonizingly painful, but it would have added to Christ’s sufferings as the bloodied wounds dried onto his clothing and were ripped open when the clothing was removed. And the flaying would have made the subsequent beatings even worse.
“If Jesus was ‘flayed’ only hours before, the dried clots on his back were rapidly removed from his back and fresh blood would quickly flow,” McGovern wrote. “The skin of Jesus’ back, sides, buttocks, thighs, and legs were then damaged so that wheals, purpura, abrasions, and lacerations formed.
🩸The muscles then tore and bled profusely. His back, posterior thighs, and posterior legs became bleeding and clotting masses of formless and quivering flesh.
Then he was turned around, and the same thing was done to his chest, abdomen, thighs, and legs.”
🩸Jesus would have been crucified naked in order to maximise his humiliation. Their was no loin cloth Think about it: what better way to ultimately humiliate and demoralize someone than to hang them up on a cross without a scrap of clothing? Here you are, suffering great pain and dying slowly in front of a crowd (and possibly relatives), stripped naked after being scourged, and definitely not in a usual context for nudity. You can’t even brush the stinging insects and biting flies away from your face, much less your poor genitalia. Nudity on the cross was part of the entire execution process.
Jesus was attached to the cross with spikes five to seven inches long that were driven one each through his wrists and one through both of his feet. There are no major arteries at the sites of the nailings, but the spikes may have hit any of a number of crucial major nerves. What would have resulted would be “excruciating fiery bolts of pain in both arms.” Similar pain would have occurred because of wounds to the feet.
🩸Suffering would have been intense since severe muscle cramps, agonizing shooting pain from the nerve injuries and the struggle to maintain breathing by lifting the weight of his body with his arms could have been combined with such discomforts as insects burrowing into his ears, eyes and nose and birds of prey attacking the wounds.
Jesus experienced hours of limitless pain, cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain where tissue is torn from His lacerated back as He moves up and down against the rough timber. Then another agony begins -- a terrible crushing pain deep in the chest as the pericardium slowly fills with serum and begins to compress the heart. One remembers again the 22nd Psalm, the 14th verse:
“I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.”
FOR THE JOY set before Him, he endured the cross.
Take a minute and thank Jesus for the cross.
FINALLY, consider this. #GoodFriday2023 is good because after the crucifixion comes resurrection
#asburyrevival THE DEATH OF JESUS
Great post from @stephgotsaved 👇
In 1986, The American Medical Association published an article titled "The Physical Death of Jesus Christ". It details the entire process of Jesus' trial to His death on the cross.
In Luke 22, before Jesus is arrested, it is written that He was in great distress & sweating blood. Although rare, it is recognized as Hematidrosis, caused by high amounts of stress.
At the time, the crucifixion was considered the worst death for the worst of criminals. But this is not all Jesus faced. He endured whipping so severe that it tore the flesh from His body. He was beaten so horrific that His face was torn & His beard ripped.
A crown of thorns, 2-3 inches long cut deeply into His scalp. The leather whip used to flog Him had tiny iron balls & sharp bones. The balls caused internal injuries while the sharp bones ripped open His flesh. His skeletal muscles, veins, & bowels we're exposed, causing major blood loss. Most men do not survive this kind of torture. After Jesus was severely flogged, He was forced to carry His own cross while people mocked & spat on Him.
Crucifixion was a process meant to instill excruciating pain, creating a slow & agonizing death. Nails as long as 8 inches were driven into Jesus' wrists & feet. The Roman soldiers knew the tendon in the wrists would tear & break, forcing Jesus to use His back muscles to support Himself to breathe. Imagine the struggle, the pain, the courage..Jesus endured this reality for 3 hours!
The Gospel of John writes that after Jesus' death, a Roman soldier pierced His side with a spear & blood & water came out. Scientists explain that from hypovolemic shock, the rapid heartrate causes fluid to gather in the sack around the lungs & heart. The gathering of fluid in the membrane around the heart is called Pericardial effusion & the lungs, Pleural effusion.
To the world, Christianity is as foolish as it can get. They believe it's for the weak. But when you are confronted by the reality of the cross, it's clearly not a pretty sight. It is brutal & horrific.
This is the weight Jesus carried. The weight of the sins of the world, all so that we can live. God's wrath is fully satisfied in Jesus. This is what it took. Repent & believe! Jesus is “God among us” in the flesh. Jesus is our Savior. Jesus loves you so much, He went through this spiritual and physical punishment for your sins and mine.
Jesus is LORD, Almighty God, Everlasting Father.
Quarantine is when the movement of sick people is restricted.
Tyranny is when the movement of healthy people is restricted.
Propaganda is when the media deliberately deceive the public about that difference.
Francis Schaeffer writing in 1984:
“Christianity is no longer providing the consensus for our society. And Christianity is no longer providing the consensus upon which our law is based. That is not to say that the United States ever was a “Christian nation” in the sense that all or most of our citizens were Christians, nor in the sense that the nation, its laws, and social life were ever a full and complete expression of Christian truth. There is no golden age in the past which we can idealize—whether it is early America, the Reformation, or the early church. But until recent decades something did exist which can rightly be called a Christian consensus or ethos which gave a distinctive shape to Western society and to the United States in a definite way. Now that consensus is all but gone, and the freedoms that it brought are being destroyed before our eyes. We are at a time when humanism is coming to its natural conclusion in morals, in values, and in law. All that society has today are relativistic values based upon statistical averages, or the arbitrary decisions of those who hold legal and political power.”
Our Lord has many weak children in his family, many dull pupils in his school, many raw soldiers in his army, many lame sheep in his flock. Yet he bears with them all, and casts none away. Happy is that Christian who has learned to do likewise with his brethren. -@JCRyle