Jesus Paid It All
A couple months ago, I was running errands with my youngest, Cole. A typical weekday morning. As we were leaving a store, I lifted him up into the Sequoia, sat him in his car seat, and started strapping all the straps and buckling all the buckles of his five-point harness. With a cheeky smile, he exclaimed, “This my car!”
Chuckling in my head at how, even as a two-year-old, Cole knows how to be silly – attempting to be funny like his brothers any chance he gets – I said, “Oh, really?! This is your car? Did you pay for it?”
As if he understood my question, Cole laughed and shook his head, “Nooooo!”
And such is the truth of my life in Christ. I didn’t pay for it, and it’s not mine.
I remember when the reality of this weighty truth sank into the depths of my heart years ago, and immediately following Cole’s reply, I thought once again of Jesus at Calvary, paying for my life with His own.
Scripture says, “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19, ESV).
Jesus paid for my life, for your life, with His perfect and precious blood. Therefore, it’s His life in me, and He alone is sovereign over it. For, “he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5, NIV).
Our peace is that our lives are His. We are not our own. In today’s culture, society would say that’s a horrendous thing – for your life to not belong to you. BUT, on the contrary, if my life is His, then I am loved and forgiven. If my life is hidden in Christ, then I am safe and protected. If my life belongs to the King, then I am not only welcomed into His courts, I BELONG there. Oh, what a glorious day!
Let us rejoice then that by His blood, our lives are His. But let us not forget, it takes daily surrender at the foot of the cross to live in such a way. May we remember this Easter that because Jesus paid it all, then whatever we’re hanging onto, we can let go of; whatever we think we’re in control of, we are not; whatever burdens we’re carrying, we are free from; whatever plans and dreams we have, we can trust Him to shape; whatever blessings surround us, we can attribute to His glory – not our own.
Let us rejoice for He is sovereign over all that is His.
