Perfectly Obedient In Our Place

“Today’s Devotion” For March 22, 2005

Read: Matthew 27:32-44; Psalm 69:13-36

PERFECTLY OBEDIENT IN OUR PLACE

"There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall, but after tasting it, He refused to drink it." (Mt. 27:34)

"He's always been a willful and disobedient child," sobbed the mother as the police hauled her son away. He was arrested for a gang murder and was caught after a shootout with police. Speaking to her pastor, the mother went on, "After his daddy died I did my best to raise him. All around us people were dying like flies. Life was cheap. I tried to instill in him how valuable life is. I took him to church and Sunday school, read the Bible at home, and we prayed together every night. Yet somehow it had no effect on him. From the time he was ten years old he was hanging with the gangs and nothing I could say would change his mind."

At the ripe old age of 16, this young man from the streets was sent to adult court for his crimes. He was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, four counts of armed robbery, resisting arrest, and half-dozen other felony counts. His mother had taken him to church, she had gotten a "Big Brother" for him, enrolled him in the Boys' and Girls' Clubs of America, and had tried to help him with his homework. She had sacrificed to send him to a parochial school, working extra to pay the tuition. In the end, tried and convicted as an adult, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without any chance of parole. He had done his "own thing," his own way, and didn't care about anyone else's opinion--not even God's. As we stand at the foot of the Cross again this week, this picture could very well be any one of us, in any number of different ways, for our sinful nature puts us at constant odds with God's Will and His love. We are, without God's intervention, fully disobedient and willful children motivated by self-centeredness and doomed to eternity without Him.

Standing in sharp contrast to this picture is Jesus. He stands out as the true, obedient, and innocent Son of the Father which no other human being could ever have been after Adam's and Eve's Fall into Sin in Eden. True to His prayer in Gethsemane, Jesus refused to drink the wine mixed with gall (a poison that numbs the senses) so that He would truly bear the Father's full wrath for the sins of the world on the Cross. Instead of doing things His way, the Father's way became His way. God's Plan for our salvation was followed. Jesus was scorned, laughed at, mocked, and crucified--all for us and in our place. Crucified with criminals, even though He was innocent of all charges leveled against Him, He experienced God's full wrath toward sin. He took our place on the Cross, paying the full penalty for our Sin and the full price for our redemption, so that we might be restored to our Father in heaven. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the epitome of obedience to the Father. He is the ultimate example for our restored lives with the Father. We are God's People because Christ has made it so. We live by faith in the willing and obedient Son of the Father who gives us life and forgiveness each day. By His Word and Spirit we too become the willing and obedient sons and daughters of our Father in heaven.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank You for being the willing, obedient, and sinless Son of the Father for me. Because of You I have my heavenly Father's forgiveness for all my sins and His promise of eternal life in You. Help me to live in such a way that I, too, may be a willing and obedient child of my Father in heaven, and a true witness and living testimony to His love for all the world; His desire that everyone should be saved and come to the full knowledge of the Way, the Truth, and the Life that is found only in You. In Your precious name I pray. Amen.
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--Pastor Boeck

Copyright © 2005 Rev. Richard J. Boeck, Jr. All rights reserved.