And so, what is our duty to God? In the words of Ecclesiastes, we are to remember our Creator in the days of our youth. We are to fear Him. In other words, we are to reverence, respect and love God.
As Christians, we often say and easily acknowledge we owe God everything and deserve nothing good. We acknowledge this truth (Job 41:11), but rarely think specifically of what that means. So we live as entitled people of the world rather than grateful people of God when we’re indignant that: we have to sit in traffic, there aren’t enough lanes open in the grocery store and we have to wait, we have to repeat ourselves, someone doesn’t do something we asked for—the first time, we get an illness or disease and we believe the lie that we don’t deserve it and we’re frustrated that no one can find a cure…and so on.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…Then God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness…And God saw everything that He made, and behold, it was very good.
“Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit.
“Who has first given to Me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is Mine.”
~Genesis 1:1, 26a, 31a; Psalm 49:7-9; Job 41:11 (ESV)
We see here a metaphor, a form of figurative expression used to emphasize a point: that Jesus became “sin. ” More literally, He became a “sin offering. ” But a sin offering was that on which the guilt of the sins of others was symbolically placed. In Jesus’ case, our guilt was literally placed on Him when He came as the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world.
“Do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”
–Matthew 26:53
And we pray:
Dear precious Lamb, You took the guilt of our sins on Yourself and You were treated by the Father as if guilty Yourself for our sins. God turned away His face – From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”). Matthew 27:45–46; and you bore God’s wrath against sin as if You had been sin itself, when You hung on Calvary’s tree. May we never forget that great sacrifice You made for us. may we never forget the gift of Your perfect righteousness. Amen.