{"id":1877,"date":"2012-03-24T07:00:19","date_gmt":"2012-03-24T06:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/?p=1877"},"modified":"2012-02-27T12:30:08","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T11:30:08","slug":"lent-devotions-2012-saturday-24th-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/2012\/03\/24\/lent-devotions-2012-saturday-24th-march\/","title":{"rendered":"Lent Devotions 2012: Saturday 24th March"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe crowd watched, and the leaders laughed and scoffed. ‘He saved others’, they said, ‘let him save himself if he is really God\u2019s Chosen One, the Messiah.’\u201d Luke 23:35<\/strong><\/p>\n

I sometimes wonder what it must have been like, being there at that time where Jesus was on the cross. Since the beginning of time, man only ever knew about sacrificing the flock, a new-born lamb and even his own children to keep the ‘gods’ happy. Since the beginning of time, man knew that there was a greater power and force on which the plantations depended, i.e. wind, sun and rain. In Roman times, man would bring sacrifices in order to be made right with God, but then Jesus came to the temple and drove the people out saying, \u201cThe scripture declares, \u2018My Temple will be called a place of prayer\u2019 but you have turned it into a den of thieves!\u201d (Matthew 21:13). Jesus is the light of the world and He came at just the perfect time to be our Lord and Saviour. Jesus also said, \u201cThe stone rejected by the builders has now become the cornerstone. This is the Lord\u2019s doing, and it is marvellous to see\u201d (Matthew 21:42).<\/p>\n

It is plain to see how lost mankind really was but Jesus stepped right in! When the people asked this question saying, \u201cHe saved others, let him save himself if he is really God\u2019s Chosen One\u201d, I can see that yes of course He could save Himself but that was not part of God\u2019s will. Jesus chose to drink the cup of suffering and became the ultimate sacrifice for us. The most powerful thing to see here is that Jesus died on the cross for our sin so that we don\u2019t have to! That is so mind-blowing and powerful: that God gave His one and only Son to die on the cross in our place. The wages of sin is death and yes, it should be us on that cross, but God has given us a gift so amazing through His Son Jesus Christ and it is so marvellous to see. Hallelujah! No-one can come to the Father except through Jesus; He is the light of the world who has brought heaven to earth.<\/p>\n

Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Son Jesus Christ. You are the God of love; You came to this earth not to condemn it for all our sin but to serve us. Thank You for being our Lord and Saviour and teach us to be more like You! Amen.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe crowd watched, and the leaders laughed and scoffed. ‘He saved others’, they said, ‘let him save himself if he is really God\u2019s Chosen One, the Messiah.’\u201d Luke 23:35 I sometimes wonder what it must have been like, being there at that time where Jesus was on the cross. Since the beginning of time, man […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lent-devotions-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1878,"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions\/1878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}