Lake Eufaula Christian Church
If you’ve ever been with someone special as they were passing from this life into eternity, then you know what dying people say is important for them to express. Because last words reveal true hearts, we need to consider Jesus’s “last words” as His most serious advice we need to follow.
On the cross He provided a truly righteous example for believers in how we should live out the Christian journey. His very first words on the cross demonstrate His tremendous respect for forgiveness.
In the place called The Skull, where soldiers nailed Him to the cross, Jesus’s first words were “Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) Forgiveness is our greatest need. The truth is: everyone is a sinner. If you’ve ever lied, you’re a liar. If you’ve ever stolen anything, even a piece of gum, you’re a thief. If you’ve ever thought lustfully about someone, you’re an adulterer in your heart. We are all sinners.
If God’s glorious standard for heaven is holy perfection, then we can’t save ourselves because we are imperfect. Sinners need a Savior to forgive their sins. No matter whether you have been a Christian for 50 years, 50 minutes, or not at all, you need to know why a Savior had to be part of the greatest story ever told.
The story started when God created Adam and Eve and put them in a beautiful garden full of delicious fruit, with only one tree they were commanded not to eat from. But they did! Satan tempted them in the form of a snake, and God had to punish their sin. But while doing so, God also set in place the rescue mission for all of us to have sins forgiven.
One moment, we’re in a beautiful garden. The next, we’re standing at the foot of an ugly hill where criminals were crucified. The Rescue Mission is about to succeed with a perfectly righteous, but wrecked man, battered, disfigured, and dying. He’s hung on a tree. Gasping for air to fill His lungs, Jesus the Christ, God’s chosen Messiah, came to be a living sacrifice.
Because humans have been corrupted by sin since the moment Adam and Eve took that very first bite, our sinful nature tempts us to do what we want—not what God wants. We are too darkened by our sin to find our way back to God on our own. Justice requires that there be a price, a great cost for our sin. Yet despite our flaws, God sent Jesus— the perfect, sinless, long-prophesied Son of God—to live a blameless, sinless life and die to make our reconciliation with God possible. That doesn’t happen without the cross.
And what does Jesus ask in return. Forgive! “Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?’ Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven’”. (Matthew 18:21:22) Forgiveness restores broken relationships. The opposite of forgiveness is unforgiveness, bitterness, holding a grudge. Jesus came to make sure that we were not only restored in forgiveness to the Father, but to show us we could also be restored in forgiveness to those who hurt us. Unforgiveness is like drinking rat poison and expecting the rat to die. Holding a grudge steals away joy and hurts only the grudge holder.
We at LECC know that Jesus’s advice to forgive is right-on, a powerful truth to help us live more like Christ. So, we look forward to hearing His second words on the cross in our 11 a.m. worship service Sunday, March 10, in our sanctuary at 415987 Highway 9. Please join us then and at our 10 a.m. small group Bible study and 6:30 p.m. Wednesday night classes for all ages. If you don’t have a church home, then please know that this Easter season would be a blessed time for you to visit our little church and find the family you never knew you needed. Have a wonderful week.
God Bless You!
Jeremy Little, Minister
