Pain and the Cross

Well, yesterday morning was quite eventful. My back gave out and I went tumbling to the ground. I could not stand up or move. I have never felt such excruciating pain in my life. Somehow I made my way downstairs and laid on the floor for 5 hours without moving. After taking some Ibuprofen the pain began to subside some and I was able to at least sit on the couch. Even now as I sit here, I still have a bit of pain if I turn a certain way, but its moving towards healing.

As all this was happening yesterday, this thought came to my mind: “I cannot even imagine trying to carry a big cross on my back right now”. After this thought, my mind was taken to the scene of the passion. I thought of the pain that Jesus endured as His back was being thrashed and torn to bits by the cat of nine tails.

Yeah, something happened to my back to where I couldn’t even do a thing without feeling pain in one spot, but this was just a glimpse of what Jesus willingly endured. His WHOLE back was torn apart, many muscles ripped out of Him, and that’s only the beginning of the pain He would feel. After being whipped, leaving Him almost completely immobile, He was then pushed around and made to carry a big thing of wood on His shoulders all by Himself until He could not go any further and needed help.

I came to find myself asking why? Why would the God of creation endure such pain even to the point of death… The answer is this: He had a PASSION to redeem all creation! This was the joy set before Him and there was no stopping Him!

There is an immeasurable passion inside of our God for those made in His image to walk again as they were created to before the fall. We see it in Genesis 3 when He tells of the promise of the seed that would come and crush the serpents head! It’s a passion that drove Him to come in the flesh as a child and live unrecognized and despised by the very ones He created and came to save. A passion that drove Him to the grave, but yet it’s a passion that not even the grave could contain! It’s a passion that will cause Him to return for His bride and rid this universe of sin and wickedness forever!

It’s this same passion that He prays for us to have in John 17:26! A passion that should drive us to never waste our lives on living for ourselves but that Christ would be glorified with every breath. And when the darkest days of the planet are upon us, that very love will be dwelling in our hearts. We will imitate Jesus as we love not our lives even unto death. We will stand upon our convictions of truth and through the passion of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit we will overcome death for the joy set before us (The resurrection, the earth being returned to the intended state God had at the beginning, and Jesus upon this earth as King forever!)

Let this be the banner of our lives through pain and even unto death for HE is the joy set before us….

“On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”