Matthew 27:37 “And they put over His head the accusation written against Him: ‘THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.’”
Dear God,
In the peace and quiet of this Your Sabbath day, I worship and adore You. Apart from You I would not be, on this beautiful day, and if I did not have You, I would have nothing of true value and not be truly content with anything. A worse thought than that is that I would not know You who has always been and always will be. You are also in every place at one time and You know everything, before, now and to come. You are totally righteous and full of goodness, power and knowledge. It is Your total love and compassion that caused You to allow Your precious Son, to be our sin sacrifice on earth. This knowledge means I can always truly trust You, with my life and future.
I cannot think what it must have been like for You to experience watching how You Son was treated upon earth, as He bore our sins, upon the cross and died. As well as knowing that we who would come after Jesus, would not have treated Him any better if we had been alive and in that place, at that time.
Even though the title had been written and affixed to the cross, ‘King of the Jews’, many Jews themselves had never accepted Him as a prophet, or as the Messiah, let alone their leader or King – even though He fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah and others, about Him, and all in those prophecies about how they would ‘play out’. I note that all of Your prophecies yet to occur are about the events leading up to and the return of Jesus in the skies to collect His true believers and take them home with Him.
How easy it is to have closed minds, and therefore miss out on the full blessings You have planned for me (us). Lord, please forgive me for this attitude in the past, and be my strength so I can give You my whole heart today and all days.
Amen
February 16
Dear God,
Thank You for Your blessings and answers to my prayers that I receive new every day from You my loving God.
The Romans had crucified Jesus because of the persistence and conniving from the national leaders; and from others of His own people on earth; as had been prophesied. Matthew 27:50 “And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.” Then followed a number of supernatural events, which affrighted the centurion and those guarding Jesus, “…feared greatly, saying, ‘Truly this was the Son of God!”
Were most of the Pharisee’s humbled or convicted, that Jesus truly was the Son of God? No, is the sad answer and they have had many who followed this path, down through the ages.
Joseph of Arimathea, now came out from being a secret a follower of Jesus; and the body of Jesus was buried in Joseph’s own tomb.The Pharisees added insult upon insult upon Jesus, by going on their holy day, to Pilate and asking for the tomb to be guarded, saying, “…..the deceiver said, ‘after three days I will rise.’ They were afraid that one of disciples of Jesus would come by night and steal his body from the grave and report Jesus was alive. They had not believed the prophecies about Jesus that would have told them that Jesus would come alive after three days, and no deception would be needed to give that news to the people for they would hear from eye witnesses.
It is frightening the place we can go to and what we will do, when we go Satan’s way and eventually reject Jesus. I pray that I will cling to You Jesus, and never depart from loving You and I rely on the promises You gave that tell that You will give me strength to cling to You, I only have to humble myself and ask, and today I do just that.
Amen