God's Friend

 We will continue with part 3 of our study of Christ.  The life and work of Christ is represented very well in a few verses the Apostle Paul spoke, through his letter to the Philippians.  Paul wrote these words in Philippians 2:5-11, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”   This time we will look at Christ the sacrificed.

This leads us to the fact that Jesus, God in the flesh, was willing to be sacrificed for the sins of all of eternity.  He became the perfect sacrifice needed to give grace and mercy to humankind.  The Hebrew writer gives this in Hebrews 9:26-28, “He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.  And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many,  will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.”  I have often thought about this ultimate sacrifice in a much more personal way.  If you could imagine your child, if you have one, or another that you truly love,  dying for someone that you didn’t even like, one that had abandoned you and shown you no love, then this will begin to let you and me understand the love and sacrifice this truly was. 

John pens these words of Jesus in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one  than  this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”  Jesus had this amazing love for us, but as a side note to this lesson, Jesus calls us His friends.  That puts us in an amazing category with Abraham and Moses (Isaiah 41:8, Exodus 33:11) as friends of the almighty God.  That alone is enough to leave me smiling all day today. God plus one is always a majority.  Jesus leaves us no doubt why He came to earth in Matthew 20:28, “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many”.  We are reminded of Christ’s sacrifice by Peter in 1 Peter 2:24, “and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed”.  So Jesus Christ became flesh so that He might become our sacrifice.

God Bless!