Good Friday

[This is a copy of an email I sent out today to the church where I serve. I thought I would post it here as well for others. -Barry]

Today is Good Friday, a day on which Christians remember the tragic yet wonderful event of Jesus dying on the cross.

These days we often wear crosses as jewelry or as logos on clothing. But let us not forget that a very real, heavy piece of wood was laid upon the bloody shoulders of Jesus as he was marched to his death on a hill. He was nailed to that wood and hung up to die an agonizing death. Why? He was receiving the punishment that we as sinners deserve before a holy God. He was the perfect lamb, to be sacrificed in our place. Because of Jesus' sacrifice, love, and obedience to the Father, we can now be forgiven and right with God. Just like Isaac was spared from death when God provided the ram in the bush (Gen. 22), so we can escape death by faith in the Lamb of God who was sacrificed, Jesus Christ. This type of faith demands that you put your trust, your entire life in the hands of Jesus the King. We know that He is the King because he was raised from the dead Easter morning, and ascended to heaven forty days later to be at God's right hand. The Bible says that Jesus the King will come again to take his followers home to heaven (John 14) and to judge the wicked (Rev. 20:11).

Please, take a moment today to read the verses below and say a pray of thanks to Jesus for His love for you.

a sinner saved by God's grace,
Pastor Barry

Isaiah 53:4-12 (ESV)
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.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.