Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Psalm 22:1-2 My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
Why are You so far from helping Me,
And from the words of My groaning?
O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear;
And in the night season, and am not silent.
JESUS WAS FORSAKEN FOR US
We don't have time in such a short devotion to answer what it means to be forsaken by God, so we instead we will consider why Jesus was forsaken for us.
Psalm 22:1 is a Holy Spirit inspired prophecy of what our Savior would endure for us. From the cross, Jesus asked, "Why have you forsaken ME?" Jesus knew the answer, didn't He? Of course He did. And, by faith, so do we. Because He came to be "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
Peter explains what Christ accomplished when He fulfilled the prophecy of Psalm 22 when He writes: "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit." Jesus was forsaken as our substitute by taking on the punishment of God for us.
Statements such as this may bring feelings of guilt and to a point they should. But only to the point of repentance as we take comfort and rejoice in the results of our Savior's sacrifice for us. Because our Savior was willing to be forsaken by God, we have been declared holy through the blood of Christ. With sins paid for in full and the gift of faith we can now rejoice that the Righteous One paid for the unrighteous. We can rejoice because our Savior was willing to say, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me" for us. Now we will never have to utter those horrible words ourselves!
Since Jesus was forsaken, God promises that He will never forsake us.
