Good Friday

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief. Isaiah 53:3-10a

Today is Good Friday. The day which we remember how Jesus suffered and died on the cross at Calvary to take on sin and death and secure our redemption.

In The Passion of Jesus Christ, John Piper describes fifty reasons why Jesus Christ came to die on the Cross at Calvary. Among the reasons he describes: to absorb the wrath of God, to show His love for us, for the forgiveness of our sins, to reconcile us to God, to enable us to live by faith in Him, to secure our resurrection from the dead, and to rescue us from final judgement.

Reason #17 caught my attention this morning: to obtain for us all things that are good for us. Using Romans 8:32 as his text, he writes: The suffering and death of Jesus Christ guarantee that God will give us all things that we need to do his will and to give him glory and to attain everlasting joy.

In Him, we died to ourselves on the cross at Calvary. And in Him, we live – no longer for ourselves, but for Him. To do His will for His glory. He gives us everything we need to live in such a way. And, living for Him, we experience everlasting joy.