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  29^th March 2024

FridayReflection

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'Marshall Segal' discusses

Do you know that God loved you before there was anything in you to love?

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You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.

Ephesians 2:1-2

You were not merely weak and wicked and hostile, though.
You were dead.
Sure, you may have been moving and breathing and eating and talking, but in all the ways that matter most, you were empty, barren, cold.

You weren't gasping for air or hanging on in a coma.
And while you were living in your lifeless blood, Jesus stopped beside you.
And he not only stopped, but he chose to bleed and die so that you might stand up and live.

Jesus took the awful thing that was killing you - your sin - and then breathed his own life and joy into your unmoving heart.

Who would die for a dead man? The one who died for you.
Who would die for his enemy? The one who died for you.
Who would die for a sinner? The one who died for you.

He found you at your very worst, saw all of you at your very worst, and then he made himself your worst, so that in him you might become the righteousness of God

One reason we lack the depth, faith, and joy we long to experience is that we fail to confront the sinfulness of sin - specifically, the sinfulness of our own sin.
When Ryle wrote his classic book on holiness, he believed he had to begin here, with our weakness, wickedness, hostility, and ruin:

Dim or indistinct views of sin are the origin of most of the errors, heresies, and false doctrines of the present day.
If a man does not realise the dangerous nature of his soul's disease, you cannot wonder if he is content with false or imperfect remedies.
Why do people wander after false gods and false gospels?
Because they don't take sin seriously enough.

If they saw sin for what it is - crippling our souls, corrupting and twisting our minds, seeding hostility, and breeding death - then they would see that the cross is the only cure.

Then they would find in Jesus, a God more lovely than they are wicked, more alive than they are dead, more forgiving than they are guilty.

There is a remedy revealed for man's need, as wide and broad and deep as man's disease.

We need not be afraid to look at sin, and study its nature, origin, power, extent, and vileness, if we only look at the same time at the Almighty medicine provided for us in the salvation that is in Christ Jesus.

So, this Good Friday, look deeply again into the awful weight of sin -
and then look even more deeply into the loving eyes of the sinless Man of Sorrows,
crucified and crushed for you.

This is an edited version.
The full article and Bible references are avaiable on request

Marshall Segal
is a writer and managing editor at desiringGod.org. (Created by John Piper)
He's the author of Not Yet Married: The Pursuit of Joy in Singleness & Dating.
He graduated from Bethlehem College & Seminary.
He and his wife, Faye, have three children and live in Minneapolis.

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