Orange Moon "The Most Sacred Ground"

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

 

"The Most Sacred Ground"   

 

       "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying…. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46).

 

    In a Bible wherein every verse presents holy ground upon which our hearts may tread, Matthew 27:46 offers perhaps the most sacred of all.  God the Father and God the Holy Spirit abandoned the Lord Jesus Christ to die alone on the cross of Calvary, thus rendering Him as the most forlorn and loneliest of all souls.  Indeed, only the Savior knew loneliness against the backdrop of eternally perfect fellowship with other like Beings.  "Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24).  

 

    What would it mean to a heart that had always been perfectly loved to lose such blessedness?  "We did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted" (Isaiah 53:4).  Certainly, we can never know.  Without minimizing the loneliness known by others and ourselves, we must realize the Lord Jesus ventured far further into the darkness of forsakenness than any other will ever know.  For our sakes, the Father smote Him with the full fury of His wrath against sin. This included utter abandonment.  The Lord Jesus thus knows lonely like no one else knows lonely.  The lonely can therefore bring their hearts to Him with full assurance that He can do something about their sorrow.  "I will be with Thee" sounded the promise of the Old Testament.  "I am with Thee" promises the assurance of the New Testament (Isaiah 43:2; Acts 18:10).  The basis for such grace rests in the sorrows of Calvary and its forsaken Christ.  Because, in direct proportion to the Lord Jesus being abandoned on the cross, those who trust Him can forever be sure of God's promise," I will never leave thee nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5).  

 

    The better we know what the cross involved, the more we will know the salvation and life it made possible for our hearts.  This especially applies to God's abiding presence for all who believe.  We cannot yet see, hear, or touch Him.  However, as we trust Him, we can have confidence He will make Himself known in ways that assure us we are not alone.  Realizing the sorrow of loneliness known on the cross will go far in leading us to also realize its greatest gift.  Long ago, someone lost for a time that must have seemed like an eternity the presence of His Father and the Holy Spirit.  Because He did, in this moment and forevermore, God's presence resides and abides abides with us as the promise made possible by the loss…

 

"I am with you always."

(Matthew 28:20)

"He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

(II Corinthians 5:21)

Weekly Memory Verse

    "The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works."

(Psalm 145:9)

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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