Have You Forsaken Jesus?

“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” If you are familiar with the Bible, particularly the Gospels, then you recognize this as the final words of Jesus just before His death. If you are even more of a Bible expert you will recognize that Jesus was actually quoting Psalm 22:1 in which the psalmist also said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The psalmist added this, “Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?”

David wrote that Psalm. David was a man who knew the pain of feeling alone and abandoned. He knew the feelings of betrayal. Certainly one can feel the desperation in the words of Psalm 22. Most of us will not escape this life without feeling lost and abandoned. Maybe today you feel that way. Maybe the memory of those times is still fresh in your mind. I know those feelings. I sure hope my last words on earth are not “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I pray yours are not either.

But they were the final words of Jesus. You see the reason Jesus uttered those words is because He was paying the penalty for sin. The penalty for sin is separation from God. And the truth is even one single sin will bring separation from God. That’s just the truth of scripture. God is holy. God is so holy He cannot be in the presence of sin. We cannot stand in front of Him if sin is upon us. Sin stains us. According to scripture all of us are sinners. Romans 3:23 “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We’re all guilty. We hung Jesus on the cross. Each and every one of us.

But the Gospel means good news and the good news here is that Jesus was willing to utter those words on the cross. And because He was we have hope. But we can never forget the fact that in order for us to be saved Jesus had to be willing to accept punishment for what we have done. One of my favorite passages of the Bible is Philippians 2:8 which reminds us of what Christ did saying that He, “being found in human form humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

But then another passage intrigues me. Isaiah chapter 53 is a beautiful reading that prophesied the coming of Jesus and what He would do, and how He would be received and treated. But one passage just amazes me.

Isaiah 53:10
Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief…

The King James renders that as “it pleased the LORD to bruise him.” There is a great lesson here for us. God’s will pleases God. Yet read through Isaiah 53 in the detailed description of what Jesus faced.

Isaiah 53:2-5
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.  He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.  Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Watch the movie The Passion of the Christ sometime and you will get a glimpse of the pain Jesus suffered. And as previously stated He suffered it because of us. And why?

Isaiah 53:6
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Yet God was pleased to let His only Son, whom has been with God through all eternity having never, ever been separated from, not only take our punishment in terms of physical beatings and abuse, but for the first time ever in eternity Jesus and the Father were spiritually separated. Thus Jesus had to cry out in anguish like we’ve never known, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani.”

That my friend is how much God loves us.

So today let us not take for granted our salvation. We were bought and paid for. God the Father and Jesus the Son deserve our complete worship. They deserve more than the lip service we give them. More than the weak worship we offer Sunday mornings when most of us think standing in a room singing songs and clapping hands and tapping our toes to the beat of a band is all the worship we need.

My prayer is that one day I will be a true man of worship. I look forward to the day I will fall in front of the Almighty God and worship Him in true spirit and truth void of my selfish desires and sinful nature. But until that day we must get serious about worshipping God. We must learn to fall down in front of Jesus, the Lamb of God and be sure that He never has to ask us again, “Why have you forsaken me?”

Glory Be to God. And to Him alone.