My Sin Was Great But His LOVE Was GREATER
“For this is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one MEDIATOR between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all people…” ( 1 Timothy 2:3-6) “
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loves us, For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the LOVE OF GOD that is in CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD.” ( Romans 8: 35-39) I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter, as you remembered the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus Christ paid for each of us on the cross, dying for our sins, that He took the wrath of God, the punishment we deserved, died in our place on that cross on Calvary. Three days later, rising from the dead, conquering sin and death. This is our living hope, this is our assurance, that because of Christ we are no longer dead in our sins, we are no longer slaves to sin, rather we are alive with the eternal hope and promise that all our sins are forever washed away and we are Sons and Daughters of the Most High. We are ALL in desperate need of a Savior. In our lives we were slaves to sin, lost in our brokenness, our hurt, our pain, our shame. But PRAISE be to Jesus Christ our LORD and Savior who conquered sin, death, shame and all things on the cross! That by the precious blood of Jesus we are saved, if we believe in Him. That my sin, my wrongdoing was great. And because of this I was separated from God who is Holy, perfect and just. “ Your iniquities (sins) have separated you from God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” ( Isaiah 59:2). There was a great divide, a great separation between us and God, because our sins separate us from God. “ If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” ( 1 John 1 :8-9) That He told us how we ought to live but we disobeyed, we chose the wrong and were lead away, lead astray in our sins. But because God’s love is greater, because of His great, unfailing, unconditional love for us, God sent us a Savior, His name is Jesus.
“ For God so loved the world that He gave us His one and only Son, that whosoever would believe in Him, would not perish but have eternal life.For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. ” ( John 3:16-18) Because GOD LOVES US, because He LOVES YOU, and because He LOVES ME, He chose to leave heavens glory to save a world of lost sinners. That HE CHOSE to die on a Roman cross, taking the cup of the wrath of God, for you and for me, dying in our place, taking what we deserved. What we deserve is death, but God extended grace to us. BY His grace we are saved.
“ As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of HIS GREAT LOVE FOR US, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ even when we were dead in transgressions- for it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast. ( Ephesians 2:1-9) A beautiful example of this is of the criminal on the cross. Jesus is on the cross, slowly suffocating on the cross, dying for the sins of all the world. The soldiers, people passing by and even both the criminals, who were crucified with Him on His left and right, were mocking Him and hurling insults at Him. (“ In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.” Matthew 27:44) Then we read in Luke 23: 39- 43, “ One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other criminal rebuked him. Don’t you fear God,” he said, “ since you are under the same sentence? We are PUNISHED JUSTLY, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” This criminal, this sinner, spent his life choosing the wrong, rebelling against the law and against God. His just punishment is that he would be crucified because of the crimes he committed. This criminal even says,’ we are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.” That when they were first on the cross together, this criminal was joining in on mocking and insulting Jesus, yet we find a change in him later on as they’ve been on the cross for a few hours. This man,a criminal, a rebel, a sinner, recognizes that he is under the just judgement as his deeds, his wrong doing deserves. This criminal recognizes that he is going to die soon, and he is thinking about his life and where he will go when he dies and goes into eternity. That because of his choices in this life, he was subject to death by crucifixion. That because of our sins, our wrongdoing, our rebellion against God, we too, are subject to our just punishment of death. But there is HOPE IN JESUS CHRIST!
This criminal, hours before he would die, choose to ask for forgiveness, chose to believe in Jesus, that Jesus could save him. Jesus was his only hope, Jesus is our only hope. He made the choice and he said,” Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” “Jesus answered, “ TRULY I tell you, TODAY YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN PARADISE.” This man, his entire life was lost in sin, choosing to disobey God, and yet on the cross, crucified next to Jesus, he had the choice to choose. He had the choice to take the punishment on his own sin and choices and leave this life and be eternally separated from God in hell. Or he could choose to believe, ask for forgiveness, and let Jesus take the punishment for his sins. What he chose was Jesus, and His promise was forgiveness and eternal life with Jesus.
“ You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners Christ died for us.” ( Romans 5:6-8)
“ for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood- be to received by faith… “ ( Romans 3:23- 25)
“ For if we have been united with him in a death like this, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin- because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again: death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. “ ( Romans 6: 5-11)
“This is from God, who reconciled the world to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he committed to us the message of reconciliation.” ( 2 Corinthians 5: 18-19)
Jesus extends grace and love. That though our sins are many, that though our sins are great, His LOVE for us is GREATER Still! That our sins separate us from God, but Jesus with His arm stretched wide, paid our price, stood in the gap for us and says, “ I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6).
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. BUT THANKS BE TO GOD! HE GIVES US THE VICTORY THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.” ( 1 Corinthians 15: 55-57)
CHRIST IS RISEN!!! WE have the VICTORY through JESUS! Praise the LORD always, He has set you free, He has given you eternal life, and no one and NOTHING can separate you from the LOVE OF GOD THAT IS IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD!!!
MY SIN WAS GREAT BUT HIS LOVE WAS AND IS GREATER!!! Praise the LORD forever! Amen!
