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Never Forsaken By Bill Crowder
Read: Psalm 22:1-10
Jesus cried out in a loud voice, . . . “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Matthew 27:46
Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky said, “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” With that in mind, I read an online article describing “The Top 8 Deadliest Prisons in the World.” In one of these prisons every prisoner is held in solitary confinement.
We are intended to live and relate in relationships and community, not in isolation. This is what makes solitary confinement such a harsh punishment.
Isolation is the agony Christ suffered when His eternal relationship with the Father was broken on the cross. We hear this in His cry captured in Matthew 27:46: “About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ (which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’).” As He suffered and died under the burden of our sins, Christ was suddenly alone, forsaken, isolated, cut off from His relationship with the Father. Yet His suffering in isolation secured for us the promise of the Father: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Heb. 13:5).
Christ endured the agony and abandonment of the cross for us so that we would never be alone or abandoned by our God. Ever.
Father, thank You for making it possible for me to be Your child. I will be eternally grateful for the price Jesus paid to make that relationship possible. Thank You for the promise that You will never abandon me.
Those who know Jesus are never alone.
INSIGHT:
Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God affected their relationship with Him, with each other, and with the good world God had created for them to live in and tend (Gen. 3:8-19). Too often we think of Jesus’s work—His life, death, and resurrection—solely in terms of what it means for our relationship with God. But the redemptive work of Christ extends beyond reconciling us to God. Jesus inaugurated a kingdom that is about restoring what was broken at the fall.
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Psalm 22:1-10 King James Version (KJV)
22 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
2 O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
4 Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
5 They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.
6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
8 He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.
9 But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts.
10 I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly.
Read: Psalm 22:1-10
Jesus cried out in a loud voice, . . . “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Matthew 27:46
Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky said, “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” With that in mind, I read an online article describing “The Top 8 Deadliest Prisons in the World.” In one of these prisons every prisoner is held in solitary confinement.
We are intended to live and relate in relationships and community, not in isolation. This is what makes solitary confinement such a harsh punishment.
Isolation is the agony Christ suffered when His eternal relationship with the Father was broken on the cross. We hear this in His cry captured in Matthew 27:46: “About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ (which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’).” As He suffered and died under the burden of our sins, Christ was suddenly alone, forsaken, isolated, cut off from His relationship with the Father. Yet His suffering in isolation secured for us the promise of the Father: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Heb. 13:5).
Christ endured the agony and abandonment of the cross for us so that we would never be alone or abandoned by our God. Ever.
Father, thank You for making it possible for me to be Your child. I will be eternally grateful for the price Jesus paid to make that relationship possible. Thank You for the promise that You will never abandon me.
Those who know Jesus are never alone.
INSIGHT:
Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God affected their relationship with Him, with each other, and with the good world God had created for them to live in and tend (Gen. 3:8-19). Too often we think of Jesus’s work—His life, death, and resurrection—solely in terms of what it means for our relationship with God. But the redemptive work of Christ extends beyond reconciling us to God. Jesus inaugurated a kingdom that is about restoring what was broken at the fall.
......................................................
Psalm 22:1-10 King James Version (KJV)
22 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
2 O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
4 Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
5 They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.
6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
8 He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.
9 But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts.
10 I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly.