Where Mercy Abounds...

This week I had the unbelievably wonderful privilege and joy of remembering what God has done for us on the cross. Daryl and I went to Fairfax, VA so he could serve on a panel for the National Science Foundation, leaving me with time alone to study the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ and what that means for me and for you.

What a joy! I read through CJ Mahaney's book, "Living The Cross Centered Life" which I highly recommend to you. (www.sovereigngracestore.com)

He so kindly reminded me of God's immeasurably personal love for me (and for you!) by expounding on Jesus' time in the garden of Gethsemane, His death on the cross and His resurrection. Not to mention my own sinfulness.

The most humbling part of the book to me, the part that most caused me to worship, was CJ's teaching on the garden of Gethsemane. CJ discussed how Jesus knew always that He had been sent to earth to pay for the sins of mankind, and how He never wavered in the face of persecution and trouble, but how He suddenly was completely distressed in Gethsemane.

"Why?" writes CJ.

"Here's why: In this garden, our Savior is beginning to confront as never before the ultimate and deepest agony of Calvary - an agony that will go infinitely beyond any physical aspects of His sufferings.

For Jesus, the cross will bring incomparable and unprecedented suffering of wrath and abandonment. His downward path into those unspeakable depths begins to plunge steeply in this garden called Gethsemane." (p. 79 of The Cross Centered Life)

The astounding thing here is that the cup Jesus kept asking to be removed from Him - the cup of complete wrath from God the Father that was anyways so that WE could drink from full the cup of salvation.

Jesus could have yelled to the men mocking him from the bottom of the cross, "Drink your own cup!" and gotten down, but He didn't.

Why?

According to Galatians 2:20 He suffered the complete wrath of God that belonged to me and to you because He loved me and you.

Amazing.

It is this demonstration of God's love that I must continue to study and focus on because it is here that I remember that God certainly loves me and all of mankind and here that I am moved to worship and here that I motivated to live for Him and here that I am inspired to tell others about Him. It is here at the cross; the most wondrous place in all of history.

Have you looked upon it today?