Jesus Gave His Life Voluntarily

Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father. (John 10:17-18) 

This passage reveals the deep love of the Father for His Son Jesus, the love of Jesus for His Father as well as their love for all of us who were created in their image. Our focus passage also reveals the beautiful character and self-sacrifice of Jesus and the fact that God loved His son all the more because of it. Another very important fact to ponder in our verse is that Jesus states emphatically that no one takes His life. He lays it down! When the actual event happened (His crucifixion) He allowed them to place Him on the cross, after He allowed them to scourge Him. 

It is true that anybody can lay down their life for another, and in fact that has surely happened over and over throughout the history of man. However, nobody other than Jesus has been known to take up his life once he laid it down as Jesus did. Because Jesus had the power to take up His own life, it is evidence of His unique relationship with His Father. Why is this important to take note of? Because there are those such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses who teach that Jesus couldn’t do that. Then there are even well-known evangelicals in the modern-day faith movement that teach that Jesus suffered as a victim in hell and was saved only by the intervention of God the Father—that Jesus did not have the power to take it again. That teaching is contrary to what Jesus states in our focus passage! 

Jesus’ action that came later regarding His death and resurrection was completely voluntary. We must also realize that this act was not an indirect suicide in any sense! This voluntary act of His was part of a plan to submit to death and then to emerge from it victoriously alive, according to the command that He had received from God the Father. 

We must always remember that this act was motivated by pure love for the Father and for all of us who were created in His image John 3:16-17: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 

Dale LaFrance (please look up 1John 3:16 & 4:10) 

Living in Memory of What Christ Did for Us

For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of our sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He live to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:5-11) 

If you have received the gift of salvation through the atoning blood of Christ by what He did for all of us on the cross, your life should be completely the opposite of what it was before you accepted that gift. People that you have known all your life prior to that life changing moment should recognize that you’re not that same old person; you should be seen as someone new because of what Jesus has done in and through you. 

There is a key phrase in our focus passage that I would like to focus on that is essential that would bring about that change: united together.  This being united together expresses a close union, just like being married does. This phrase resembles what it looks like when this process is used in the grafting of a tree. The union is of the closest sort, and life from Christ flows through to those who chose to live in Christ. Jesus taught that He is the True Vine in John 15 and that those of us who receive His gift of salvation are the branches. So then if He is the Vine and we are the branches our fruit should look just like His. 

This close union that we have with Jesus is both in His death and His resurrection. God has both experiences for us as Paul teaches in Philippians 3:10-11: That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. There are those who are all too ready to be united in the glory of resurrection, however, are unwilling to be united together in His death! This means that they don’t want to live for Him as they are called to, they want to cling to their old man and not die to self as called to. 

Jesus died to replace that old man (sinfulness) in us. When a person receives the gracious gift of salvation that old man is nailed to the cross and given a new man in Christ. God uses the death of our old man, the sin nature, to liberate us from the sin that has bound us. Because of what Christ did that dead man can no longer have authority over us, unless of course we revisit him and return to that lifestyle; something many unfortunately have done. We are called to remember and account the old man as crucified with Him; this is something that we need to do on a regular basis. 

I want to urge and exhort each of us to take inventory of our lives. Are we dredging up the old man or are we living as the new man that Christ has given us? Brothers and sisters, when people look at us what do they see? It’s my prayer and hope that it is Christ in us, and not that sinful old man we once were. Live your life in memory of what Christ did for you! 

Dale LaFrance (please look up Ephesians 4:24 & Colossians 3:10) 

God’s Provision

Therefore do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (Matthew 6:31-34) 

The Lie Whisperer loves to put God’s people into a worry corner! He does this because he knows this is a tool of his that keeps God’s people from effectively doing His work. Our Heavenly Father is aware of our every basic need, which is why Jesus reminds us of this in our focus passage. Notice how Jesus paints a picture of those who don’t know God and those who do: unbelievers spend all their time trying to acquire the material things of this world, while believers who lean into and trust God for their needs will have those provided. 

King David understood that trusting God and knowing that He is good was essential in walking with Him, Psalm 34:8-10: Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Oh, fear the LORD, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger; But those who seek the LORD shall not lack any good thing. Both our focus passage and what David states shows how we as believers must seek, believe, and follow what God commands us and He will be our provision! 

Because of the sin that has infected the world since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, we are all broken people in need of repair. This repair can only be provided by our Creator and Deliverer, through Jesus Christ. God loves to repair us, and He will if only we will allow Him to. There are some who believe that they can’t come to God until they get right or fix themselves, another lie from the Lie Whisperer that many tend to believe. Trying to do this on our own can be very wearisome which is why Jesus calls us to come to Him so that He can repair that brokenness caused by the sin that separates us from our Heavenly Father, Matthew 11:28-29: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” God is our Provider! He provides us with the forgiveness that we need when we call out to Him for it. He provides what we need to live in this world. He provides the guidance we need as we seek Him for it. Long story short! He provides all that we need, not what we want! 

Know this, if you have chosen to accept and receive the salvation of God through Jesus Christ, you are called and you are His. A good friend of mine reminded me that, “God does not call the equipped, He equips the called!” If God has called you, then God will equip you to do what He has called you for. He will provide! All you are required to do is trust Him! 

Dale LaFrance (please look up Psalm 23:1 & 2 Corinthians 9:8) 

Deliverance

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. (Galatians 5:1) 

It is a sad fact that there are many believers in Christ that do not live a life of liberty that is provided by God through the atoning blood of Christ. Even back when Paul wrote to the Galatians this very thing was an issue. It is true that he is addressing an issue that Jewish believers had with trying to live as Jesus commanded them to and yet many struggled with the keeping of Jewish laws that Jesus had set them free of. 

Alot of those Jewish laws had been expanded upon by man over the years and was not what God had intended; and yet, the religious leaders used these laws to lord over the people. These very laws by God were not made to enslave them, yet the expanded ones by man did just that! There are religions and or church’s today that have done the same thing by setting rules or guidelines that are not scriptural that enslave followers. Our focus passage tells us to stand firmly in the liberty that Jesus has provided for us, not by a set of man-made rules: the fact is that Jesus has made us free! If we live in bondage to a legal relationship with God, it isn’t because God wills it. In fact, God pleads with us to take His strength and walk in that freedom, and to not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. 

There certainly can be a struggle to free oneself from this bondage. It’s like being tangled up in a net; the more you struggle to get out the more you are entangled. It is Christ and Christ alone who can set you free from this entanglement. And if you really ponder our focus verse it doesn’t always have to apply to just religious rules and or laws, one can be enslaved by a variety of worldly entrapments as well that hold you back from serving God in the way that He calls us to. 

Think about that yoke of bondage that is mentioned in our focus passage. Bondage can also come in the forms of fear, worry, lack of trust, bank accounts, and relationships and whatever else that would keep us from living in the freedom that Christ offers to all of us followers.  

As believers we need to remember and cling to what 1 John 4:4 tells us: You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. The child of God is called to live in freedom from all things that would entangle them and keep them from living as God wills. The Lie Whisperer would have God’s people living in bondage if he was allowed to have his way, and thankfully he is not allowed that. Yet, it is upon each one of us to claim and cling to that victory of freedom afforded to us by the power that is given to each one of us through the blood of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit. That indwelling Spirit is greater than he who is in the world – Satan and all his allies. 

So, today if you’re living in bondage of any sort, give it to our Deliverer Jesus, and allow Him to set you free! He can, He will, He promised, and He never fails on His promises.  

Dale LaFrance (please look up Psalm 32:7 & James 4:7)