Day 18: He Suffered to Bring Us Home
Bible passage: 1 Peter 3:18; Isaiah 53
The Centre of Our Faith
Today is Monday 18th of January 2021. Welcome to Day 18 of our 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting. Today we come to the heart of everything we believe.
“Christ suffered for our sins once for all time.” 1 Peter 3:18 (NLT)
Peter goes on to say that Christ never sinned, but that He died for sinners to bring us safely home to God. The whole gospel is in that one verse.
What Happened at the Cross
Once for All Time
The death of Jesus never needs to be repeated, and nothing needs to be added to it. When He cried out from the cross that it was finished (John 19:30), He meant it. The price of our sin was paid in full.
The Sinless for the Sinful
What took place at the cross was an exchange. Paul describes it in a single sentence. God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). He took what was ours, and we receive what is His.
Foretold Long Before
About seven hundred years before Jesus was born, Isaiah wrote about a suffering servant. He would be despised and rejected, a man of sorrows. He would be pierced for our rebellion and crushed for our sins. All of us have strayed like sheep, Isaiah says, and the Lord laid on Him the sins of us all (Isaiah 53:3–6).
Isaiah saw beyond the suffering as well. When the servant sees all that His anguish has accomplished, he says, He will be satisfied (Isaiah 53:11). Jesus looked ahead to the joy of bringing us home, and He counted the cross worth it (Hebrews 12:2).
He Went Willingly
On the night of His arrest, Jesus prayed in Gethsemane that the cup of suffering might be taken away. Yet He prayed for His Father’s will to be done, not His own (Luke 22:42). The cup was not taken away. He drank it for us.
The cross was not a tragedy that overtook Jesus. It was a rescue that He chose. It shows us how serious our sin is, and how great God’s love is.
To Bring You Home
Peter tells us why He did it. It was to bring us safely home to God. The cross does more than cancel a debt. It restores a relationship. Through it we have been born again into a living hope, with an inheritance kept in heaven for us (1 Peter 1:3–4).
Living as the Forgiven
Three Steps for Today
Thank Him. Spend some time today doing nothing except thanking Jesus. Read Isaiah 53 and put your own name into it.
Receive what He paid for. Forgiveness, peace with God and a right standing before Him are yours in Christ. Are you still trying to pay for something He has already paid for?
Come home. If you have never put your trust in Jesus, or you have wandered away from Him, today is the day to come. Tell Him, and then tell one of us. We would love to pray with you.
Prayer for Today:
Lord Jesus, thank You for the cross. You never sinned, and yet You suffered for my sins to bring me home to God. I cannot repay You, and You do not ask me to. I lay my sin and my striving at Your feet, and I receive Your forgiveness, Your peace and Your righteousness. Teach me to live as someone who has been forgiven. Amen.
Keep going
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