Jesus Paid It All

So, I've been thinking a lot lately about sin and its consequences. Sin has a way of ruining everything, but then again, I guess that's the point. Sin ruined everything, including our relationship with God.

Sin is so corrosive that when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they fashioned coverings out of fig leaves because they were embarrassed. Here are two people, maybe the only two people, who were literally created for one another. God saw that Adam was alone and that he needed a companion, and so he made Eve from Adam's rib. Eve was a very part of Adam. Yet, sin is so powerful that instantly the seeds of distrust, embarrassment, and insecurity were sewn.

Sin took two people made for each other, and drove them apart from each other and God. If it wasn't possible for Adam and Eve to trust each other, two people formed for one another by God, how much more difficult is it for us to trust people? We're supposed to let people into our lives and trust them, and we don't even have the assurance that they're "the one".

Then we look at the cross, and the sacrifice Christ made so that we could once again be in fellowship with God. Christ's death is powerful both in imagery and in its effect, but how often do we think of Christ's life? When Jesus paid it all the price he paid wasn't just death; it was His life.

Each one of us possess hopes and dreams, and perhaps they're unspoken, but they are there. I'm sure in Jesus' time the Jones' had the newest donkey on the street, Mary wanted to send her son to the best prep school, and Joseph was planning for retirement. Everything we spend our lives worrying (sinning) about, and planning wasn't even an option for Jesus.

Jesus gave up the Nazarene Dream for you and me. He gave up his childhood, the education, the construction business, the two donkeys in the garage, the wife and family, the weekends on the green. He saw our separation from God, and it wrecked Him. He had to do something; He paid the ultimate price.

I guess my point is that it wasn't a one time event. Jesus didn't just bebop it along until the garden of Gethsemane and that's when things got difficult. Sure, Jesus' death was a sacrifice, but so was His entire life. Jesus had emotions just like you and me, and every day was a choice for Him. He chose to live in order that He could die.

You and I will never know anyone who loves us that much. In order to be with me, he went up on the tree. He gave his body to the lonely. He gave his clothes. He gave up a wife and a family. He gave his goals.


It's powerful.

And all to Him I owe...