For Our Sake

2 Corinthians 5:21

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

How often have you believed a feeling?  I’ve allowed feelings to make me feel as if my worth would be decided on how well I performed, and especially when it came to God.  So reading 2 Corinthians 5:21, when it states that Jesus who is pure, Holy, Creator, and the Messiah the one John the Baptist calls the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world; states that for your sake and mine He, Jesus, became sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God, I find no performance on my part.
That’s beyond human understanding, because since the fall of man people have been making up religions and objecting to worship, and those rules and religion are designed around how well they perform.  Even the atheist has an object of worship, it’s called self and his rules are against any moral authority. 

So each of us who seeks truth must want answers as to why would God allow His Son, His only Son to step out of the glory of being worshiped in heaven and come to earth and die for the sins of someone like me?  As we look into this you are going to be amazed that God loves you not based on your goodness, not on your wealth or lack of, not on your nationality, but just because He desires to have a relationship with you.

Do your recall the prophet Jeremiah when the Lord said to him as a youth, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)  And what about the apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians 1:3-4, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms.  For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence.”  That is not logical to my mind, that God would choose us before He created the world knowing we would sin, knowing we would reject His Son, knowing the price that His Son would have to pay to redeem you and I.  Yet God has been very clear to all who will listen: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Do you recall the apostle John telling us these words: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”  (1 John 4:7-10)

Love is the only answer to the question “Why” Have you a desire to be loved not based on your performance, or anything but that our Father wants to have you know Him and long to be in a Father-son/daughter relationship with Him?

From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice