You are worth it! Yes, you! What are you worth? Everything to Jesus!

As we are in the midst of Holy Week, I am reminded of all Jesus has done for each of us. Remember He is the Son of God and the Son of Man, fully God, fully human. In being fully human, Jesus felt everything we feel and in order to be the perfect Savior, the perfect sacrifice, He had to experience everything we experience and still live a sinless life. 

• “He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of Himself that He had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, He set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, He stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, He lived a selfless, obedient life and died a selfless, obedient death–and the worst kind of death at that–a crucifixion.” Philippians 2:6-8 MSG
• “Because God’s children are human beings–made of flesh and blood–the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could He die, and only by dying could He break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could He set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying. We also know that the Son did not come to help the angels; He came to help (people like us-MSG) the descendants of Abraham. Therefore, it was necessary for Him to be made in every respect like us, His brothers and sisters, so that He could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then He could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people. Since He Himself has gone through suffering and testing, He is able to help us when we are being tested.” Hebrews 2:14-18 NLT
• “This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for He faced all the same testings we do, yet He did not sin.” Hebrews 4:15 NLT
• “Therefore He is able, once and forever, to save those who come to God through Him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf. He is the kind of high priest we need because He is holy and blameless, unstained by sin. He has been set apart from sinners and has been given the highest place of honor in heaven. Unlike those other high priests, He does not need to offer sacrifices every day. They did this for their own sins first and then for the sins of the people. But Jesus did this once for all when He offered Himself as the sacrifice for the people’s sins.” Hebrews 7:25-27 NLT

This is Jesus. The Son of God. The Son of Man. The One who was delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God before the foundation of the world. (Acts 2:23, 1 Peter 1:20)

During His last week on earth, Jesus:

• Has a triumphal entry into Jerusalem where the people hailed Him as king
• Curses a fig tree
• Cleanses the temple by turning over the tables of the money changers and driving them out
• Is questioned by the religious leaders trying to entrap Him while His parables anger them, His condemnation of their hypocrisy incensed them and they begin to conspire against Him plotting a way to arrest Him
• Continues teaching
• Eats Passover with His disciples, instituting the Lord’s Supper
• Tells of one He has chosen as follower and friend will betray Him
• Promises the Holy Spirit and prays for His disciples, including us
• Prays in Gethsemane, asking Peter, James and John to take watch and pray with Him and they sleep instead 
• Prays in agony, sweating drops of blood, asking the Father to take this cup from Him, yet not His will, but the Father’s be done
• Is betrayed with a kiss
• Is arrested
• Is deserted by His disciples
• Is denied by Peter numerous times
• Is bound
• Is questioned by the High Priests Annas and Caiaphas
• Is struck in the face
• Is accused with false testimony
• Is condemned as worthy of death
• Is mocked repeatedly
• Is beaten
• Is blindfolded
• Is insulted
• Is questioned repeatedly by the Governor, Pilate
• Is questioned by the King, Herod Antipas
• Is ridiculed
• Is examined
• Is flogged
• Is stripped
• Has a crown of thorns set on his head
• Is spit on
• Is struck in the head again and again
• Is shouted at
• Carried His own cross
• Is nailed to the cross
• Is lifted up
• Is crucified
• Is insulted
• Is forsaken by God
• Gave up His spirit and dies
• Had His side pierced with a spear
• Is wrapped with spices
• Is buried
• Has His body sealed in a tomb with a big stone and guarded by soldiers

All Jesus suffered and endured-the questioning, the condemnation, the entrapments, the conspiracies, the plotting, the betrayal, the arrest, the desertion by those closest to Him, the denials, the binding, the strikes with hands, sticks and rods, the false accusations, the mocking, the beatings, the insults, the ridicule, the examinations, the flogging, the stripping, the spitting, the mockery, the shouting, the insults, the hatred, the shame, the laughing, the cross, the carrying of the cross we deserve, the weight of our sin on His shoulders, the nails driven into His flesh and not ours, the crucifixion, the separation from God the Father, the darkness, and ultimately, death and burial-ALL of it was for YOU! He did this for us-for you and for me! He did it for the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2); that joy was you and me with Him and the Father forever! While He was going through ALL of that, YOU were on His mind. He has such love for you. He has such a desire to spend eternity with you. He longs to spend each day with you as His temple that His Spirit resides in. He has chosen you and says you are worth everything that He went through! He said, “She is worth it! He is worth it! They are worth it!.” Before the foundation of the world He chose us in Him, predestined us to adoption through Jesus according to the kind intention of His will because it was His good pleasure to do so! (Ephesians 1:4-5) Before every sin you would commit, before every choice He knew you would make, He loved you and chose to come to this earth, endure everything that we do and so much more all in order to have a true, unending, loving relationship with you! The King of kings and Lord of lords did all of this for you!

Thank you is such an inadequate response. I shake my head bowed in humility as I think of Jesus having me on His mind while He is subjected to such a devastating last week of His life, all because of the depth of love He has for me. I cannot fathom it at all and yet every word of it is true. That is why when He asks me to take up my cross, deny myself and follow Him, I say take my life and let it bring Him glory as He sees fit. I aim to be One Dawning Light for Him.

What about you? How do you respond to Jesus’ actions for you? What is it like for you to hear that Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before Him? 

Remember that this suffering and death is not the end! Jesus didn’t just die. Jesus took care of all that was lost in the beginning in the garden. Jesus took care of the punishment of sin being the perfect sacrifice. Jesus was raised, resurrected! Jesus defeated death! Jesus made the way for us to be in right standing with God our Father again. The veil is torn and we can come boldly into His presence and be lavished with His love. Believing Jesus is the Son of God, acknowledging that He died for our sin and was raised again, we can have a new, resurrected life with Him for all eternity. 

As we continue through Holy Week leading up to Easter, the culmination of it all-the resurrection-don’t lose sight of the fact that YOU ARE WORTH IT!