"The Best Day" Part 3

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

"The Best Day"

Part 3

   

     Every "best day" experienced by born again believers as a free gift of God's grace comes to us by way of the worst day any sentient being will ever experience.

    "My God, My God why hast Thou forsaken Me?!" (Matthew 27:46).

    Against the backdrop of eternity spent in the joyous presence of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, God the Son was abandoned to die alone on the cross of Calvary.  There the Lord Jesus Christ suffered the wrath of the Father by bearing our sins, and being "made to be sin for us" (I Peter 2:24; II Corinthians 5:21).  No one knows, or ever will know the sorrowful agony of lonely as does the Lord Jesus.  Even those eternally banished from the presence of God will not know forsakenness as did the Savior.  They will be judged for their own sins.  Christ was "the propitiation not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world" (I John 2:2).  Thus, when "lonely" comes to mind, we must first think of the One who ventured further into the dark and forlorn void than any other.  "We did esteem Him sticken,  smitten of God… They all forsook Him" (Isaiah 53:4; Mark 14:50).

   This was the price paid to make possible our days as best days.  They come to us by way of the worst day, that dark time when our Lord cried out unto a Heaven that had turned away.  How with us God must be in light of the price paid to freely give us His indwelling and abiding presence!  Thus, on those days that so feel and seem like worst days, we do well to remember that God is "a very present help in trouble" (Psalm 46:1).  He is so because when our Lord cried out "My God, My God," no answer came.  Indeed, the darkness that descended upon the world during our Savior's agony paled to the darkness known within His heart.  This is the price of "I am with you always" and "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee" (Matthew 28:20; Hebrews 13:5).  And this is the remembrance whereby our worst days can be known in a very different light as we look to the One whose forsakenness on the cross of Calvary ensures the presence of God as the freely given gift of grace purchased by the highest cost ever remitted.

"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?  Why art Thou so far from helping Me, and from the words of My roaring?  O my God, I cry in the daytime, but Thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent."

(Psalm 22:1)

Weekly Memory Verse

   How excellent is Thy lovingkindness, o Lord!  Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings."

(Psalm 36:7)

   

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