Jesus Paid It All

As I read the Easter Story From The Bible I thought about the pain, the sadness, the hurt of knowing that my Savior was beat, spit on, His hair pulled out, falsely accused, made fun of, it grieved my soul and I wept. Then as I laid my Bible down and walked outside I saw the lilies blooming, then I was reminded He is Not there, He has risen! ! Near Easter every year I always remember, with great emotion, the Easter play,  by the youth, at my church. It was over twenty years ago and I still remember it as it was yesterday. I have told this in a past commentary but I feel that it needs to be repeated. I can still feel the presents of The Holy Spirit as I did that very day in that old country church!

Every year I always repeat the story about my oldest son having the part of Christ, in the Easter play at our church and as he carried the cross on his shoulders down the isle he was being beaten with a whip by his cousin who was playing the part of a roman soldier. {There was no real hard and hurtful blows to my son}  As I watched my son being beat with the whip in this play I thought to myself; This is my son and it is only a play, but how Our Heavenly Father  must have felt as he watched from Heaven as His only begotten Son was being whipped, beat, and then crucified. As I watched that play I cried uncontrollably and it was not just a few tears. I felt the Spirit of the Lord and to this day I’m always in remembrance of that day in my life and the most unforgettable play that brought me to uncontrollable tears. That was the day it hit me like a ton of bricks and I was greatly moved by the Holy Ghost. Some people might call it emotions, but I call it The Holy Ghost moving on me. It always feels so good when the Spirit quickens you. That play will stay with me for the rest of my life. This was the punishment that Jesus took for you and me. Oh what joy it will be on that day when my Jesus I will see. The One who died for me {and you}. I want to fall at His feet and tell Him how much that I love him.

By His strips we were healed, no kind of disease or sickness has no authority over The Lord’s child, He was wounded for our transgressions, {for all those past sins that was in our life He was beat and spit upon}, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. { In other words He took our punishment and correction so we might be reconciled to God.} He was bruised for our iniquities, { The Hebrew meaning for bruised is: To crush and beat to pieces.} This my friend is what Jesus did for us. Don’t you love Him? That Old Rugged Cross made the difference.

It is the Holy Ghost Conviction that causes us all to come to Christ. We must remember that “He is not there {in that tomb}, He has risen. We as followers of Christ have something to look forward to, that is this, we are going to live forever with our Lord, to sit at His feet, and to serve Him for ever and ever. We will be in a place where there will be no more sickness, death, no sadness, no pain, no sorrow, just peace and joy in The Holy Ghost. We will be in a place where a day will be as a thousand years and a thousand years will be as a day. Oh what a day that will be!

We live in a time and age that the world grows spiritually darker every day. There are people losing their jobs, people going hungry, people losing their homes, bank accounts, and all their worldly processions. People are alarmingly turning their back on God and things does not lot good. Our nation’s leaders for the most part have turned their back on God. I believe with all my heart that Our Savior’s return is going to be soon. All the signs are there. We must put our faith in Jesus, The Cross, The Resurrection, and The promise that He will come again. The fact that He has gone to prepare a place for us and where He is we will be also. This is our hope and our faith. All other hope is sinking sand. As I close this commentary of mine for this Easter I want to leave you with a few lines of a old hymn of the church;

My Hope is built on nothing less,

than Jesus’ Blood and righteousness,

I dare not trust the sweetest frame,

But wholly lean on Jesus Name

On Christ, The Solid Rock, I stand,

All other ground is sinking sand,

All other ground is sinking sand.

Climbing That Mountain

And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.

(Matthew 14:23)

Sometimes at my church we sing this song "High on The Mountain Top, I Can't Come Down" and this is the mountain that I want to talk about today.

There is times when a Christian must separate their self from people, the world, and all the cares of this life like Jesus separated himself from the multitudes and yes there are times when we need to separate ourselves from the things in our lives and ministry, and spend some time away from all the cares of this life. That is your time and the Lord's time to commune and talk. Let look at what happens when we go up into that mountain.

There is a reason why our Lord climbed that mountain. He could have said: Lets go to a quiet isolated place on the beach or lets go into the woods to a quiet place, which are both good places to go to get away from the crowds and our problems, but why did Jesus go to the mountain? It started me to thinking and a interesting comparison, or should I say thought, came to my mind. Think about the shape of a mountain. At the bottom it is wide, but the higher we go up that mountain, the narrower it becomes and the more closer we must stay to the center of that mountain. The higher we go there's less and less room to move to the left or the right, there is less and less ground that can be compromised. The more focused we need to be, the more we have to pay attention and the less we can allow, ourselves, to be distracted by the things around us. The higher we go, the less room we have to think about other things! Our eyes must be focused on one thing. Reaching the top.

Whatever you may be dealing with, you may just need to separate yourself and go up into the mountain to spend time with the Lord -- get centered on Him and focused on what He's calling you to.