And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. And he came the third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”
— Mark 14:32-42

As Lent draws near, the resurrection is on my mind. But you can’t have the resurrection without a death. So this question must be answered. Why did Jesus die?

We know from scripture that Jewish leaders plotted against him, Judas betrayed him, Herod and Pilate tried him, and the Roman soldiers executed him. But that’s not the real reason. As Acts 2:23 says, Jesus was “handed over by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge.”

Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. (1 Pet. 3:18) The purpose of bringing us to God implies that, prior to Jesus dying, we were far away. “You who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13).

Friends, our sin needed to be dealt with to bring us near: “Christ died for sins” (1 Pet. 3:18). The Bible does not mince words when it comes to human disobedience and its consequences. Hear that again. The Bible does not mince words when it comes to human disobedience and its consequences. Paul says in Romans 6:23 that “the wages of sin is death.” All humans stand condemned before God; our sins separate us from him whose character is pristine holiness and perfect justice. We are not in line with God when sin is left unaccounted.

To bring us near to God, “Christ died for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous” (1 Pet. 3:18). If “the unrighteous” is all of us, “the righteous” is Jesus himself. The one who “knew no sin, became sin” (2 Cor. 5:21)—our sin—so that we might receive mercy. There is simply no way to be a Christian without this understanding.

The New Testament tells us that Jesus died in our place. He paid the price for our redemption when he “gave his life as a ransom in the place of many” (Mark 10:45). Jesus reconciled us to God by bearing our sins himself (1 Pet. 2:24). “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood” (Rom. 3:25), exhausting God’s wrath against our unrighteousness. It is the only way we are redeemed.

Jesus’s death in our place is in accordance with the Old Testament Scriptures. His death fulfills the old covenant sacrifices, such as the sin offering, the Passover lamb, and the scapegoat of the Day of Atonement. He’s the Suffering Servant who was “pierced for our transgressions” (Isa. 53:5).

God’s love is all over that Holy Week. From the time Jesus entered the city to a chorus of hallelujahs to moment he took his final breath, God’s eternal love is profoundly evident. At the cross, we see the climax of God’s covenants with Israel, and we witness the final and dramatic proof of his love and justice.

Christ’s death puts beyond all doubt the fact that God loves us. It assures us that no matter what life throws at us, we can trust that “he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all . . . will also graciously give us all things” (Rom. 8:32).

At the cross we see not only God’s love, but the seriousness with which he takes our sin. “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement . . . to demonstrate his justice” (Rom. 3:25–26).

God doesn’t forgive us by turning a blind eye to our sin or by overlooking it. Forgiveness is costly to the one against whom the wrong has been done.

Honestly, where would we be if God had not sent his Son to die for us? Without the cross, we’d be “darkened in our understanding of God and alienated from the life of God” (Eph. 4:18).

The death of Jesus is for life, not just for Easter. The death of Jesus changes everything. As you prepare to take the final few steps of Lent, join Paul in saying, “I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 6:14). Praise God!!

And He said to Adam, “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’: The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.” Adam named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living. The Lord God made clothing out of skins for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them. The Lord God said, “Since man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life. — Genesis 3:17-24

When the world was created, God designed paradise for Adam and Eve. But unfortunately our beautiful paradise was destroyed by the introduction of sin. God pronounced judgment on sin, thus leaving us to feel consequences such as shame. In Genesis 3:21: “And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.”

God looked at their clothes and said, “Nope. That’s not going to work.” The clothes that Adam and Eve had made for themselves were not adequate covering to face the new fallen world in which they were now living. Sin had opened their eyes, but not in a good way. Sin laid them bare, left them feeling exposed. For the first time, they realized they were naked. So, they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths, single-piece garments. And ever since, the human race has engaged in an enterprise of self-covering that always falls short.

How often do we try to cover ourselves so that others cannot see our sinfulness? Covering sin is not simple, quick, and easy. Covering sin is costly, painful … bloody. Sin produces suffering and death, so the cost of covering sin involves suffering and death. It involves sacrifice.

Did Adam and Eve think they could just sweep things under the rug, tidy up the disastrous mess they had made without any cost, without any price being paid? Do we think that? When we try to cover our own sin, we are engaging in a futile self-salvation project. We are essentially saying, “I can atone for my own sin.”
God makes it very clear that sin requires the ultimate sacrifice. And then because of His profound love, he sent that sacrifice. Jesus Christ suffered and bled and died so that we could be adequately clothed—clothed in his righteousness. The blood of Jesus is our covering. Just like Adam and Eve, we can’t cover our own sin. God must do that, and he has made that possible with the costly sacrifice of his own Son. In light of this: “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness” (Is. 61:10).

Are you ready to have your sins covered by Jesus Christ? If so, let’s talk.

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” — Philippians 2:5-11

Philippians 2 says this of Jesus Christ: “He made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death”. While his death was a clear sacrifice, the fact is that Jesus’ entire life was marked by sacrifice—giving up his rights as a King for the sake of others.

From the moment he was born, his feet were always walking toward the ultimate sacrifice of that brutal Roman cross. Have you ever wondered why sacrifice is so central to God’s plan of redemption and reconciliation? Why couldn’t God just forgive people of their sins without sacrifice?

If you think about what it means to bring about reconciliation in a human relationship, you can see how sacrifice is always part of the process.it forces a personal cost. If you get angry at someone over some issue, to reconcile means work. It will cost you something to forgive because you have to absorb the pain of the offense. You will have to sacrifice your right to be angry and move toward forgiveness. Actually, both parties have to pay a price. The bottom line is that without sacrifice there is no reconciliation. There is only hardness of heart and death of relationship.

In a very similar way, we must sacrifice in order to move toward God with confession and repentance. We must come to the end of ourselves, killing any sense of pride and self-righteousness. But we are not the ones who move first. It is not our sacrifice that saves us. God’s plan of redemption is primarily about his sacrifice, not ours.
I read once that redemption is a term of value, so there must be a cost involved. To redeem means to buy back, to regain possession of something in exchange for payment. Because we are created in the image of God and he loves us, he considered us worth the cost of redemption. However, the full cost of redeeming a human being is staggering. What does it cost to buy a person back from the realm of sin and death, from the reign of Satan? The cost is commensurate with the destruction that sin, death, and Satan have brought to humanity. The cost is beyond our ability to pay. No amount of sacrifice on our part would enable us to cover the cost. Thankfully, the full cost fell on Jesus. All of the curses of the Fall, most notably our sin and the resulting death, were placed on Christ. His sacrifice makes our reconciliation with God possible. Thanks be to God!

If you are still hanging on to the sins in your life, my friend, it’s time to allow God into your life. Nothing in this world is worth the eternal salvation Jesus Christ offers us!

And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal
life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” — Mark 10:17-31

We are now over halfway through Lent. Throughout the journey so far, a lot has been said about sin and repentance. It’s not a fun, lightweight topic. No one likes to think about sin unless it’s someone else’s. But we’ve been called to repent as a way to take ownership of our sinfulness. It’s not a suggestion. Rather, it’s a directive from God.

Martin Luther said the Christian life is a walk of repentance and faith. But why? Why is it so important?

Repentance is a response to God’s grace. It leads to joy and restoration. Not frustration from trying harder, and not despair from beating yourself up. Those are forms of penance. Jesus is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Romans 10:4). He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1-4). Repentance is motivated by love for God and a desire for fellowship with him.

King David said, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me” (Psalm 51:1-3). David was not a man without sin. He, like each of us, succumbed to the world. Only when he came clean with God did he experience the grace of God: “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.” (32:5).

Repentance is taking responsibility for our sin. The problem is not just the sin, but that each of us is sinful. It would not be enough to clean the outside of the cup, which is why we must seek a deeper cleansing: “Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being … Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow … Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm51:6-7, 10).

Repentance is turning to God in faith. In everyday language, repentance means to “change your mind,” to reconsider how you are living your life in light of your new identity in Christ. Left to our own accord, we are prone to pursue life on our terms, and to locate our sense of worth and joy in places apart from God. So the call to repentance is a standing invitation to give up our idolatrous pursuits, and turn to the one true God who restores us to the life for which we were made. We cannot save ourselves.
Repentance is initial and ongoing. That’s why you must be in humility and seek God’s grace.

If you are in a place where the old you is ready to be cleansed, it’s time to repent of your sins, and say yes to God.