Walking in Faith » Application http://blog.worthen.org For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph 2:8-9) Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:26:36 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Isaiah 53 http://blog.worthen.org/2009/01/29/isaiah-53/ http://blog.worthen.org/2009/01/29/isaiah-53/#comments Fri, 30 Jan 2009 04:23:42 +0000 Jason Worthen http://blog.worthen.org/?p=380 Isaiah God is good.  It is beyond my understanding how He gave us Isaiah 53 somewhere around 500 years before Christ was ever born.  The text that continues to jump out at me is the one that conveys a message of Jesus carrying my transgressions.  It is personal.

4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

When I read this Scripture, it convicts me of my sins even more.  It makes me think more about the work of Jesus Christ and how in my every day life, it is absolutely critical that I never take this for granted.  People in this world will spit on Jesus because they do not believe what He did for them.  “So then [God] has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.” (Romans 9:18)  That doesn’t excuse me from being a light every single day.  My  typical week will consist of 40-50 hours of work, 5-10 hours of elder stuff, a busy Sunday in corporate worship and the rest either with my family or personal time.  When are the right people seeing Jesus in my life?  Is it during the 40-50 hours at work?  Is it during corporate worship?  There are lost people in this world who need to know what Jesus Christ did for  them.  This text makes it abundantly clear to me that God crushed Jesus Christ for His children.  He crushed Jesus Christ on the cross so that man’s sins will be washed away and accounted righteous.

What am I willing to do tomorrow in order to make sure that others know this truth?  Will I close in prayer and then forget this text until I talk to my other Christian friends or will I get in front of others who need to hear this truth and share with them the good news?  That is really the challenge to me from God today.  I wonder if He is saying the same to you…

]]> http://blog.worthen.org/2009/01/29/isaiah-53/feed/ 0