Christ Suffered and Died....

I have been reading a short book by John Piper "The Passion of Jesus Christ:50 reasons why He came to die" and I'll be posting here some of the reasons mentioned in the book.

My challenge for you is that you will take time this week, before next Sunday, to meditate on Jesus and WHY he suffered and died. So that on Sunday you can truly rejoice!!

Reason #1

Christ suffered and died...to absorb the wrath of God

In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10

Sin=dishonoring God by preferring other things over him, and acting on those preferences.

Propitiation=the removal of God's wrath by providing a substitute.

God commands us to love Him with all of our hearts, soul and might but we fail to do this. This is sin. We choose to love other things, instead of our creator and His ways. This becomes an immense offense to God that deserves punishment. He gave us life and we reject Him. Piper calls it "treason". God is just so He punishes what deserves to be punished but because of His great love for us, he provided Jesus to be the substitute of the wrath we deserved.

"...Jesus Christ, does not just cancel the wrath; he absorbs it and diverts it from us to himself. God's wrath is just, and it was spent, not withdrawn...we will never stand in awe of being loved by God until we reckon with the seriousness of our sin and the justice of his wrath against us" (Piper).

Praise God today that Christ redeemed you and became a curse for YOU! (Galatians 3:13)