The Cross - Our Way of Life (7)

 

 

“Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” Having said this, He breathed His last” (Luke 23:46).

 

We see fellowship restored, our High Priest has offered Himself (Hebrews 9:11 – 10:14), He is both Priest and Sacrifice. We cannot see what transpired when darkness covered the land, but we can see fellowship restored, for the Father has accepted the offering of the Son. Let us always be clear, that on the Cross Jesus was the perfect and complete sacrifice and reconciler, that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Cor. 5:19).

 

“He [God] made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might be the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). O dear friends, there has never been anything written as precious as this, never anything that so communicates the mystery of the Cross and those dreadful hours when holy darkness covered the land, never anything that comes so close to communicating, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

 

To think that “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son” (Rom. 5:10). To think that “having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life”! (Rom. 5:10).

 

O dear, dear friends, the love of God is overwhelming in its depth, its vastness, its Nature…no wonder Paul writes that he desires us to “know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19).

 

One day you and I will breathe our last. We do not know where we will be, we don’t know the day, we cannot discern the circumstance, we don’t know if the experience will be sudden or prolonged. We don’t know if we will be with friends and family.

 

But we do know two things. We will not be alone, for our Father and Lord Jesus will be with us, as will the blessed Holy Spirit. We also know that we can say, “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.”

 

We know this because of God’s Nature, His character (if we can use such a word), His Essence. We know this because Jesus is our perfect and eternal High Priest. We know this because God is love (1 John 4:16).

 

When Jesus says, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit,” He says this not just on His own behalf, but He speaks for us all; He speaks with assurance of His Father’s love so that you and I may speak with assurance of our Father’s love. Does Jesus not teach us to pray, “Our Father”?

 

Paul writes that “We groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven…so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life…Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge” (2 Cor. 5:1 – 5). In other words, we long for that moment when we too will say, “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.”

 

As our lives move deeper and deeper into intimacy with God, we sense what Paul was feeling when he wrote, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain…having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better” (Phil. 1:21 – 24).

 

Let us not think that we can be so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good, this is foolishness. It is only as we are heavenly minded that we can be of true earthly good, for this world desperately needs to see heaven, to taste heaven, to sense heaven – which is all to experience Jesus. We are citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20), and as citizens of heaven we are called to live. We are children of another world, and as the children of our Father we are to live and we are to die, and dying is but a portal into our eternal home and glorious destiny.

 

One day the Spirit of our Father will call us home; whenever that day is, wherever we may be, whatever the circumstance, it will be a glorious call from the One who loves us beyond measure, from the One who desires us to be with Him and with our brothers and sisters, from the One who has prepared both individual and collective destinies for us – and we will see the Lamb and be enveloped in His glory and love and peace and joy, and every tear will be wiped from our eyes, and there will no longer be any pain…NO PAIN! O hallelujah!

 

And the Name of our God will be written on us, and the Name of the Lamb, and the Name of the Holy City…and O dear friends…O dear dear friends…and we will see His Face! O my, O my, O my…we…you and I…we will see His Face.

 

Now I ask you, how can we not look forward to that day? How can we not long for that glorious day?

 

When Jesus said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit,” He said it for Himself, He said it for you, He said it for me, He said it for us.

 

Let this be our daily prayer of consecration, and our daily prayer of expectation…yes?

 

“Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.”

 

AMEN.