We have a redemptive gospel from beginning to end.   A resurrection cannot be experienced without being buried and a burial cannot be achieved without being dead.

Jesus suffered and died at the cross not for any other reason but for YOU!  Yes, He died for all, but the beauty of His love is that even in His vastness and bigness He can and He chooses to single you out to experientially know Him in a very intimate way.  Mind you, one cannot be intimate with a lot of people let alone ALL, but Jesus can.  How He does it is a beyond-comprehension-mystery which can only be fully accessed BY GRACE, His empowerment for us to receive such invitation of intimacy THROUGH FAITH.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast.”  Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV

 

You and I are worth the rejections, persecutions and abandonment that Jesus suffered.

You and I are worth every stripe that was done to Jesus’ body.

You and I are worth every thorn that pierced into Jesus’s head.

You and I are worth every nail that was driven into His hands and feet.

You and I are worth every drop of His precious blood shed from His body.

You and I are worth it all that even Him being separated from the Father He endured it FOR THE JOY THAT WAS SET BEFORE HIM … seeing you and I welcomed to come home into the loving embrace of our Daddy God where we belong.

 

When Jesus cried out “IT IS FINISHED!”, He opened the glorious gate as an invitation for us TO BE WITH HIM and IN HIM, and into the green pasture of His kingdom where His pleasures are FOREVERMORE, the pleasures bought and paid for BY HIS GREAT LOVE!

HIS LOVE gave us access for Him …

to live and move and have our bring IN HIM!

to be our Emmanuel, God with us!

to be our Lord and Savior!

to be our ultimate Healer!

to be our faithful Provider!

to be our Advocate!

to be The Way, The Truth and The Life!

to be The Light of our world!

to be The Bread of our life!

to be our Good Shepherd!

to be the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last!

 

“And I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you.”  Philippians 1:6 AMPC