Stairs of Torture

We have terrible steps in our house. They have sharp edges. They are too short for my size 13 foot, They are jagged, and they often hurt my feet. I have so many times walked down them and hurt my arches, toes, the balls of my foot or otherwise really bruised them. So much so that I finally got tired of it. So, I purchased soft cushy carpet step covers. They are brilliant! So soft and cushy they make my feet rejoice. I want to just stand on the steps now, and enjoy the comfort! After only a day of having these new carpet covers, I tried to go up the steps. As I took my first step I was remembering and preparing myself for the pain of walking up the old steps, as if there were no carpets there. I got myself ready and almost cringed as I began to walk up the stairs. My muscle memory got the best of my body, but as soon as my foot hit the stairs, I felt the new carpets! It was a feeling of relief, joy, and happiness that hit me. My body immediately relaxed. Suddenly, I felt like my feet were delivered from the incessant torture that they received every time I would walk up and down the steps for the past three years. I thought immediately of our new life in Christ. We sometimes come back to the same situations of life that we had experienced before Christ. Often in those moments I have thought, "oh no! here it comes again, the pain, the sin, the hurt, the torture of our everyday life apart from Christ!" And we even sometimes physically cringe and prepare ourselves for the onslaught of whatever condemnation is coming our way, like I did when I tried to go up the stairs. Romans 8:1 says, "there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” We are free from the cringeworthy life that we knew before Christ, sort of like the cringing, and pain of my stairs. Are you preparing yourself around every corner for the condemnation of the world, like I was preparing myself for with our torturous stairs? You can be free from all condemnation through faith in Christ! If you have not decided for Christ, then don’t wait! Choose to be free of the cringeworthy condemnation of this world. Place your faith in Christ choose freedom! Christian, If you are in Christ, stop cringing like there is some condemnation coming, prepare for the blessings of life in Christ. Act like you are a son or daughter of God, and adopted into his family! You are not longer cursed, but eternally blessed in Christ!

Sometimes we Christians are preparing ourselves for a condemnation and a curse, and Jesus says, "Where are your accusers? Didn't even one of them condemn you?…Neither do I condemn you; go, and sin no more (John 8:10).” Jesus does not condemn us because he was found to be a curse for us. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us…Galatians 3:13). He was condemned in our place so that he can in return say, “Neither do I condemn you.” Are you like me preparing for pain, torture, and condemnation. Or are you expecting blessing, freedom, and justification because that is your position in Christ! This was a freeing realization, an epiphany that I walk around as a Christian expecting condemnation even though I am free from all condemnation. Not only am I free from condemnation, but I am a recipient of his glorious eternal blessing, which is the exact opposite of condemnation. How can I walk around as if I am about to receive a foot beating like I got every time I walked up and down my stairs. I recently watched the new movie “Tortured for

 

Christ” the story of Richard Wurmbrand who spent many years in Communist prisons. His feet were so badly beaten that he could no longer walk regularly for the rest of his life. I remember vividly when he visited my Bible school and sat on the stage in his wheelchair because he could no longer walk on his own because his feet were so badly beaten all those years. He said that although the prison had taken his physical freedom away he had never felt more free. In his book “Tortured for Christ" he wrote, “I have found truly jubilant Christians only in the Bible, in the Underground Church and in prison.” He had found the freedom that Christ had won for him on the cross and had no longer let himself be bound by the constraints of this world, Oh, Lord let us taste of the same wine that these men of faith tasted. Let us walk up the stairs of freedom and blessing. Lord we will no longer walk up the step of torture and condemnation! For you have set us free, and, “if the Son sets you free you will be free indeed (John 8:36)."

FEARLESS: JESUS

Fearless: Jesus
Jesus was fearless in the face of the cross
1. What was the cross?
     Physically the cross was excruciating and we actually get the term 'excruciating' from the word 'crucify'.  The night before the cross Jesus spent the whole night praying and the scripture says his sweat was 'as drops of blood'.  This is actually a physical condition called Hematidrosis. It is a very rare condition in which a human being sweats blood. It may occur when a person is suffering extreme levels of stress, for example, facing his or her own death. Several historical references have been described; notably by Leonardo da Vinci: describing a soldier who sweated blood before battle, men unexpectedly given a death sentence, as well as descriptions in the Bible, that Jesus experienced hematidrosis when he was praying in the garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:44).  So before His trial even started He had lost a lot of blood.  So He then was sent to the high priest's palace, later that night. The arresting party brings Jesus to the Sanhedrin (Jewish supreme court); according to Luke's Gospel, Jesus is beaten up by his Jewish guards prior to his examination. The court then examines him, in the course of which, according to John's Gospel, Jesus is struck in the face by one of the Jewish officials; the court then determines he deserves to die. According to Matthew's Gospel, the court then "spat in his face and struck him with their fists". They then send him to Pontius Pilate. At the governor's palace, early morning. Pilate, the Roman governor, examines Jesus, decides he is innocent; so to try to appease the crowd Pilate flogs Jesus.  This practice was commonly called 40 lashes minus one.  The Romans had perfected a way to torture someone, and leave them at death's door but not kill them.  They would whip or flog a person with a whip called a "cat of nine tails".  This had dried clay, glass, bone, metal, and other sharp objects within it to produce the most severe amount of carnage possible.  Doctors have researched this form of torture and have concluded that much of a persons flesh would be removed during the process (the Journal of the American Medical Association, March 21, 1986, Volume 256, William D. Edwards, MD; Wesley J. Gabel, MDiv; Floyd E Hosmer, MS, AMI).  Jesus returns to trial, Pilate hoping that the punishment would appease the Jews, but the Jewish leaders and the crowd demand Jesus’ death; Pilate gives them the choice of saving Barabbas, a criminal, or saving Jesus. In response to the screaming mob Pilate sends Jesus out to be crucified.  Jesus then is made to carry his cross to Golgotha (which means 'place of the skull') and there is crucified.  Crucifixion was a slow and painful death.  When hung on a cross you would have to pull yourself up to even catch a breath, and then fall back down, and typically a person would not be able to pull themselves up anymore from the exhaustion and then die a slow death of asphyxiation (not being able to breathe). Jesus is crucified and the same day dies.  This is just a picture of the physical side of the pain of the cross.  I cannot do it justice in a blog. 
     Then came the emotional side of the cross.  Why should there be an emotional side of the cross?  Because God is an emotional being.  It says in John 3:16 "For God so loved..."  Love is an emotion no mater how you want to spin it. So if God is an emotional being than Jesus is as well.  The scripture says that Jesus on the cross cried (shouted, screamed, with tears I imagine), "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me"?  This has to be more painful than even the physical torture of the cross.  He was emotionally stricken as well.  Seperation from a Father that can only be known as the best relationship in the universe must have been emotionally painful.  God at this point must turn his back on his Son because he is carrying our sins.  Which leads me to the spiritual side of the cross.
     If you take the worst thing that you have ever done in your life...Think hard...Think really hard...you got it?  Then take the worst thing that everyone in the whole world has done, rapes, murders, torture, molestations, thievery, corruptions, Genocides, abortions, adulteries, etc, etc, and put all those sins into a cup, lets call it the 'cup of wrath' or 'suffering', and Jesus drinks that cup, that is just a fraction of the 'sins of man' and Jesus drank in all the pain and spiritual suffering of all that sin combined.  Just take rape or murder for instance people's lives are ruined from the consequences of these sins, and I am just thinking about the victims and what they go through.  What about drinking a cup of the wrath of God for the sins of the world!  This is too much even to grasp, but he did it for us. To free us from the penalty, power, and persuasiveness of sin for all time!
2. Why the cross?
     So why does Jesus need to die on the cross for us?  because of that great sin that we have committed and that we inherited from Adam, we are separated from God.  We cannot have a relationship with God, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". God cannot relate to us because of our sin.  We need a sin substitute.  Because of the broken relationship we are needy, and God wants to have us back again.  "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9). So God desires a relationship with you through Jesus Christ as seen in John 3:16 "For God so loved...the world that He gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life".  and The eternal life that is described here is a ralationship with Him in unity forever.
3. Why was Jesus fearless in the face of the cross?
     He was fearless in the face of a terrible cross for YOU and for ME!  As it says in Isaiah "Yet it was the lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the lord will prosper in his hand." Isaiah 53:10.  Who is Christ's offspring?  YOU and ME! Put your faith in him today.  Come to the foot of the cross and place your life in Him at His feet, and you will find true life!  Maybe as you watch this video below you can say with the music, "Lead me to the Cross!"