Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of the ground. He has no form or comeliness, and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were our faces from Him, He was despised and we did not esteem Him. Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But He was wounded for out transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:2-6
When our children were small, I was intentional about teaching them about God and Jesus, about their great love for us. I would often tell them Jesus loves them as I tucked them in and kissed them good night. For several years our youngest son would always tell me that Jesus did not love him, but I continued to tell him “Jesus loves you.” When he was three and a half years old, we went on a family vacation to Glen Rose, Texas to see the play “The Promise.” It was a live production in an amphitheater that enacted the life of Jesus. There were live animals walking across the stage and they even created a storm with lightening and the turbulent waters where the disciples were in a boat in the middle of the storm and Jesus walking on the troubled waters to be with them and calm the storm. The part of the play that I will never forget is when the soldiers began to whip Jesus, you could hear the whips crack and see Jesus flinching as He felt the painful lashes go across His back and wrap around His sides, tearing flesh as the soldier pulled the whip back to inflict another lash. After the first lash, Bubby climbed into my lap and buried his head in my chest and he began to say, “Jesus really loves me.” He had a hard time watching the beating and the crucifixion, but what little he watched finally convinced him Jesus really loved him. I think there are a lot of people who are like our son was when he was little, they know the story of Jesus and they know He died on a cross and rose again three days later to overcome death hell and the grave, to reconcile them with God, but they have a hard time believing that God really loves them. There are people who grew up in homes where they were not loved unconditionally and only accepted when unrealistic expectations. Some people were physically abused, some sexually, and some were emotionally abused, while someone abandoned by a parent. Because God designed the family to represent the relationship, He desires with us, often people who have been mistreated cannot see the value in them that God sees. Religion and society add to the feeling of being unlovable and rejected, because they reject those who do not conform into the image, they want them to be. True unconditional love is hard to find and probable even harder to give in our flesh. Sadly, parents (and the church) tell children Jesus does not like you when you act that way. While it is true, God does not approve of sin, He still loves the sinner. John 3:16 shares the heart of God and the reason He gave Jesus, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son. That whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” God wanted to restore the relationship with fallen man and gave Jesus to take our place to suffer and die on the cross in our place. John 3:17 also tells us, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” Jesus did not just die for the loveable perfect people, because none of us are good enough or merit that kind of love because of who we are. We can never “clean” ourselves up or do enough good deeds to merit that kind of sacrifice. The only reason we can experience the love and forgiveness of sins is because of God’s great love for us. Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrated His own love toward us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” In fact, God’s love is so amazing and abundant, He is not willing that anyone should perish, die and spend eternity in hell. 1 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning His promises as some men count slackness, but He is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” There is nothing that you could ever do that makes God stop loving you, no sin so great that it cannot be forgiven except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the unpardonable sin, because there comes a point when we grieve the Holy Spirit so bad that He will quit convicting people of their sin. As long as you feel the tug of the Holy Spirit convicting and calling you into a relationship with God, there is no sin that God will not forgive. Isaiah 53:6 “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.” Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” There are no exceptions, no one who is so good that they do not need Jesus to be their Lord and Savior. The enemy would want you to believe that you have crossed the line and gone to far, that God would never forgive _____. 1 John 1:9 clearly promises “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” When we ask forgiveness from our sins, we are covering all our trespasses with the precious blood of Jesus 1 Peter 1:18a-19a “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver of gold…but with the precious blood of Christ.” Hebrews 9:22b “without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.” So, when we ask God to forgive our sins, we are putting the shed blood of Jesus over our sins and failures. We need to leave those sins under the blood and quit thinking about them or reminding God about all the wrongs you have done for the last forty years. Another lie of the enemy is to convince a person a time comes that we exhaust the mercy of God. Mercy is defined as not getting the punishment we deserve. Lamentations 3:22-23 “Through the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” All unrighteousness means every sin! Psalm 103:13 “Bless and affectionately praise the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Who forgives all your sins, who heals all your diseases.” God will forgive all the sins you confess and ask Him to forgive. The scourging, humiliation and death on the cross did so much more than just pay for our sins, reconciling us back into an intimate relationship with God. Many people can accept the forgiveness of sins that Jesus paid for with His precious blood, but they still struggle with problems Jesus paid for on Calvary. It was the scourging Jesus received that convinced Bubby that Jesus really loved him. Can you imagine the hatred of the Jewish leaders had towards Jesus, that they would demand that horrific beating of an innocent man. Not only did Jesus chose to lay down His life for us, He endured the humiliation of being stripped naked, tied to a whipping post and then took the devastating lashes that the soldier beat him with. The beating was so horrific that the bible says He was almost not recognizable as a human. The scourging paid for our healing. We are made in the image of God and we all have a spirit, a soul (mind and emotions), and a physical body. Jesus paid the price to heal each part of us, salvation for our spirit man, peace for our emotions and will, and physical healing for our sick bodies. Isaiah 53:4 “He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” Jesus suffered so we can walk in complete healing, our spirit, our mind, and our health. Too many churches do not teach healing, some go so far as deny that healing is still available today. They can believe the first part of Psalm 103 that God forgives all their sins, but they do not believe God will heal all their diseases. How many Christians do you hear pray for healing with a prayer like this, “if it is Your will, will You heal so and so.” I have never found in scripture that it was not God’s will to heal someone. Jesus was scourged, beaten for our healing and too many people refuse to trust Jesus to heal their bodies. The whip the Roman soldiers used for the scourging was a cat of nine tails, which had nine pieces of leather attached to a handle and each of the pieces of leather had pieces of sharpened sheep bone and stones tied in them to indent the flesh and rip out chunks of flesh with each strike. Church tradition teaches that Jesus received 39 stripes for our healing. According to Deuteronomy 25 a scourging could not exceed 40 blows and Paul said that five times he received the forty minus one blow when he was beaten, so tradition teaches that Jesus received 39 blows. Isaiah 52:14 that Jesus received so many blows that “people did not see him as a human. “Just as many were appalled at you, his appearance was so disfigured that he did not look like a man, and his form did not resemble a human being.” The whip wrapped around His body and yanked out flesh from his stomach, his arms, and even his neck and face. He endured the horrible beating so we could have physical healing. 1 Peter 2:24 “Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins might live for righteousness- by whose stripes you were healed.” Jesus paid an enormous price for our healing, and many in the modern American church do not even recognize, teach, or believe in the healing provided by the scourging Jesus endured for us. As we approach the Easter season and reflect on the crucifixion and resurrection, take time to examine your belief system. Do you really believe He is able and willing to forgive all your sins? Are you convinced that the beating, the stripes on Hid back paid for your healing? There are times each of us need the Lord to increase our faith for healing and wholeness, but we must decide that Jesus paid the ultimate price for our salvation and our healing. Will you change your wrong belief system that minimizes your trust in Jesus being your healer? If we refuse to believe that He is our healer and not expect a divine healing, then we are rendering the horrible beating He endured as useless and in vain. May you have a fresh revelation of what all He sacrificed for us and decide to walk in the blessings of salvation and both emotional, and physical healing. I had a debt I could not pay. He paid the debt He did not owe, I needed someone, to wash my sins away. And now I sing a brand new song,“Amazing grace” all day long, Christ Jesus paid the debt, That I could never pay.
Cathy Nesmith