All for your consideration.
In his death Jesus embodied humility for you. You want to think about success in terms of power or wealth or influence? No one’s got more of that than God! But Jesus was willing to lay all of that down, to face the failure and defeat of the cross in your place, taking all the penalty of sin upon himself, so that you might share in the victory of his life.
When Jesus was crucified, He was hung between two convicted criminals, one of his left and one on his right. And do you know what they had been convicted of? Robbery. Jesus was crucified between two thieves. But, as one person has pointed out, as far as justice goes, there were really three thieves on the cross that day. Two died for their own crimes. One died for ours.
At last, one comes who claims to be the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy. He is not merely a new Solomon or Ezra, come to embark on a new building project. He himself is the prophesied temple.
There are no lengths he has not gone to find you. Not just sweeping the house, not just searching the hills for a sheep; God came from heaven to earth. The Son of God Jesus Christ took on flesh to find his lost. He came from glory and bliss to homeless rags. And even that wasn’t far enough.
Redemptive history progresses with a series of “false peaks,” showing partial fulfillment of the expectation of restored sanctuary but never complete and always fleeting. Is the vision of temple dwindling? Or is it perhaps focusing?
Take Note Of This 