🌿BREATHE TRUTH🌿
Yet it was our weaknesses He carried; it was our sorrows that weighed Him down…But He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on Him the sins of us all. –Isaiah 53:4-6
🌿LIVE THE REAL TRUTH🌿
Two sons. One is faithful, finds favor with His Father, and fulfills the Father’s calling for Him. The other son, faithless, falls away from the Father, and follows his own path. The sacrificial son and the prodigal son. Does God love one more than the other? The ultimate paradox, no. What follows is a sequence of events that is unfathomable to the world: The Father gives up the sacrificial son to bring home the prodigal one.
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The sacrificial Son.
Yet it was our weaknesses He carried; it was our sorrows that weighed Him down…But He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.
This is the picture of Jesus, Son of God, humanly divine, enduring all that should have been our pain and punishment for the sin of being undivinely human.
Jesus is pierced on the cross with nails crushed into his flesh for our rebellion. Crucified, Jesus carries our weaknesses, trading it for His worth. Our sorrows for His sanctification. He makes Himself nothing, allowing Himself to be beaten and whipped for our sake.
The world will offer its version of wholeness wellness and holistic healing, and how much it will cost to obtain it. But the cross has the final word on where our wholeness and healing comes from. Jesus’ crucifixion pays the price to make us complete. All the brokenness in our lives becomes completeness on the cross.
Pursuits, pleasures, and people cannot fill the lonely places and empty spaces in our lives that are incomplete. There is a hole in our soul that only eternity can fill and over-fill, to overflowing and flooding.
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The prodigal son.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on Him the sins of us all. –Isaiah 53:4-6
This is a picture of the prodigal son. Somewhere along the road, our paths may weave away from its intended destination. A part of the heart gets lost and the pilgrim’s faith, fails. We waver and wander, finding ourselves far from home, facing ourselves to be the prodigal son.
Sheep have an unusual 270-320 degrees peripheral field vision, enabling them to see behind their heads, but they lack frontal depth perception. Their weak eyesight is compensated by strong hearing. Bad eyes and good hearing means they need a good shepherd to lead and call them forth. We are like sheep. We don’t perceive the road ahead well (why we need maps), but our ears are intact. So we desire someone to lead us. Here lies the danger that sheep and people both face.
Beloved, there is only one Good Shepherd, Christ Himself. The Good Shepherd is the one true guide who offers protection when we stray, peace for delay, and protection along the way. He proves the depth of His love for us by His substitutionary death on the cross in our place. The ultimate litmus test: No other shepherd will sacrifice their life for ours. When we listen to the wrong shepherds, we leave God’s path and traverse the world’s wrath.
The wrong shepherds: all other shepherds not God and not sent from God. The Good Shepherd: God Himself, His Son, His Spirit, and those shepherds that He sends to shepherd us home safely.
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The rescued son.
The Lord is our Good Shepherd. He leads us away from where we have strayed and restores our soul. We have a choice. Beloved, do you hear His voice?
He leads the prodigal son to the right path. He sends His sacrificial Son to save the prodigal son from the wrong path. He will guide us in the good path as well. The good news from the Good Shepherd: The sacrificial Son and prodigal son will dwell in eternity together forever. Beloved, we are the prodigal sons and daughters.
Risen and rescued.
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©️2019 Jordan Su