However, would any of us sacrifice our own innocent children for the sake of a criminal? This is what God did for sinners. He allowed His perfect child, Jesus, to be scarified for the sake of His people. Isaiah 53 calls Christ, "a Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief." Verses 4-5 states, "Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed." Christ made the ultimate sacrifice, giving up His life for the lives of those He loved.
A hymn recently sung in church offers wonderful praise for Christ's gift of the forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life:
Once the world's Redeemer, dying, bore our sins upon the tree;
On that sacrifice relaying, now I look in hope to thee.
Father, take me, all forgiving, Fold me to thy loving breast;
In thy love forever living, I must be forever blest.
Please feel free to share something you've created based on this week's theme of sacrifice. You may want to focus on someone who has sacrified for you; your parents, family members, or friends, all of these given to you as a blessing from God. Or perhaps you'd like to focus your effort solely on Christ's work on the cross. Whatever you prefer, please leave us a comment with a link back to your blog or gallery. It would be a tremendous blessing for you to share your work with us!
Thank you for your continued support of our challenge blog. We treasure each and every comment and work! Stay tuned for news of our new design team, being announced in the next week!
Hazel
Kim
Lythan
Ruth
2 comments:
Did you actually mean to write that Jesus was 'scarified' for sinners? Or did you mean sacrificed?
Scarify is what you do to grass to keep it in good condition - raking out all the dead stuff. If it was a mistake it was a 'happy fault' because we have just started Lent, and it strikes me that 'scarifying' is something appropriate for that: raking out the dead stuff in our spiritual lives so the grass can grow better. Maybe that could be your next theme ...
Annmarie - what an interesting comment; I'd never heard of scarifying.
Once again, I'm getting to the challenge late in the game! It will be the same for the next one: our son leaves for basic training in the Navy on the 16th. While I have two older children in college, this is really the first "nest leaving..." http://encouragingimpressions.blogspot.com/2009/03/salt-challengesacrifice.html
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