THIS IS THE DAY

 TO REMEMBER 

CHRIST DIED

FOR US!

For ME, for YOU, for Everyone

BUT WHY did He die?     Because God our Father needed someone to STAND IN FOR US - ALL the human race since ADAM have gone their own way in opposition to God's Plan and Purpose in creating them.    We ALL have sinned and come short, and NONE has done what is RIGHT.    God did not plan our death, and had no desire to see any one of us condemned to die.     

HE LOOKED to see if there was ANYONE that could take our place at the Judgement Seat and who could help us to avoid the Death Sentence.    He found NONE good enough, better than us.   ALL mankind was and is tarnished and spoiled by sin, each one as bad as the other and under condemnation themselves.

WHO, will go and rescue my children from the requirement of the LAW?     And JESUS answered and said I will go - make ready a BODY for me, and I will go, for it is written of me  that I am here to do your will.      And so JESUS came.     He was not a criminal Himself; no sin dwelt in Him.    But, to please God, He made Himself to be as one of us, and took upon Himself our mistakes and sins, and carried them to Judgement, in our place, upon the CROSS.      He did it to please God - to assuage His Father's sorrow in contemplating OUR death.    He GAVE HIMSELF to suffer and die in our place - that we might LIVE and go FREE of condemnation.       He did that for ME, and for you,

'I SCARCE CAN TAKE IT IN.....!

It is too Wonderful for me!.

I SEE it.. I SEE that I am far short of what God, my Creator, planned and purposed.... I SEE that I deserve to DIE according to God's Perfect Law........And I SEE how much He loves me, that he himself, in Christ, took my punishment upon Himself to keep my by His side.

GOOD FRIDAY - the DAY to remember God's Goodness to ME, to YOU!    Oh how He loves us.     On this day we remember that instead of US, Jesus stood in our place, and suffered, bled and DIED;   putting an End to all our sins as He carried them to the Cross.    Oh Glorious Day.    

NOT A DAY FOR GLADNESS?

Surely NOT - for it is me that helped to put this Christ to Agony and Death.

I cannot be glad for that, for the SHAME it proclaims against me.

YET even in all the PAIN and human SELFISHNESS 

there has to be

GREAT JOY.

 HE RESCUED ME!  

I shall not die but LIVE.

OH HAPPY DAY, when all my sins were washed away

BUT He DIED

We all should remember this.

A Sombre Truth indeed - that is is ME that needed to be on that Cross, and without HIM

would STILL need to take my place in the dock of God's High Court,

to hear the Sentence of Death passed upon me without Reprieve.

to be taken away to DIE eternally.

YES,  as we remember what he went through, those hours for us,  we should refrain from thinking of it lightly.......When they took Him down from that Cross, the body dead and cooling ,He still descended into Hell to wrestle and grapple with DEATH - The Cross was not the END of what needed to be done.

A DARK NIGHTS business lay ahead, and on earth a further long day of heartfelt sorrow in thinking of the One Who Gave Up His Own Life for our sake..............SATURDAY a day in-between , grey, and somehow desolate and hopeless...............BUT WE KNOW now that the Grave could not hold HIM, and on that other DAY He ROSE, forever to be with us.

GOD OUR FATHER, BLESS YOU ALL, LETTING YOUR SPIRITS RISE WITH CHRISTS IN TUMULTUOUS JOY AND GLADNESS.      TRULY,  LET THIS BE A HAPPY EASTER.

From us all at Testimony Faith homes