The first three verses of Isaiah 53 have to do with Who Jesus was in the way He grew, lived and died but in verse 4 there is a shift to What He did, accomplished and the reaction.
The reason I bring this up is that one core difference between religious Christianity and GraceFull Christ based relationship is that the religious limit the power or work of what Christ accomplished. For the GraceFull what was accomplished on the cross and through the Resurrection.
“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering,yet we considered him punished by God,stricken by him, and afflicted.” – Isaiah 53:4
When I was religious there was a certain amount of automation to the work of Jesus and certainly a whole lot of conjunctivitis sainthood.
1)Automation means that one of the necessities to be in my religious group is to know the verse or hopefully verses or logic pattern to defend our limitations to the work of Christ. One example would be, “yes Jesus drank wine, only the nonalcoholic type though” or “be ye not unequally yoked means blacks and whites shouldn’t get married.”
2)Conjunctivitis sainthood has to do with needing a conjunctive to explain the work of Jesus, it goes something like this, “yes Jesus died for us And to show Him we love Him we need to follow the 10 commandments”, or one of my favorites, “yes we are no longer under the law But that doesn’t mean we don’t have to follow it.”
Both of these cheapen the “pain” and “suffering” of Christ and both of these allow people to sit in judgement of someone being “punished by God” and therefore both of these make the devil and his minions very happy. They are happy for the simple fact that instead of Resting in what Christ accomplished these two spiritual illnesses above cause us to strive for a prize already won and fight for a victory already achieved.
When you put the Total need for your Righteousness on the cross, Life Abundant can begin because your focus can shift from “do more” to WOW! What an AMAZING GOD IS HE WHO LOVES ME THIS MUCH!
BeGraceFull.com