amazing love

I am awed and humbled today, this Good Friday.  The recent loss of my friends stillborn daughter seems to add so much more perspective to my life this year.  I've been thinking about the child I miscarried.  I've been thinking about the babies and children of my friends who either never experienced life outside of the womb or exited this life way too soon.  And I was thinking of my God who willingly gave His son up for me.  There are several people in this world who I would die for or in place of without a second thought.  There is NO ONE in this world I would ever ask one of my sons to die for.  My children's lives are so much more precious to me.  Not to say my own life isn't precious but what I mean to say is that I cannot honestly think of one single life that I would be willing to trade one of my children's lives for.

Those of you who are parents, can you think of a life you would be willing to trade YOUR child's life for?  Can you think of a single person that you think is important enough to not only allow your child to die, but to watch him be brutally murdered?  Watching with the ability to change it and finally having to turn your back on your child's pleas because of the agony?  That is what my God did for me!  He offered His son's life as a trade for mine.  His only son.  He watched as His only son was beaten literally within an inch of his life, while this son was mocked and tortured and finally had God to turn His back right before His son died.

Amazing Love, how can it be?  Since when is my pitiful life worth the exchange of God's only son's life?  How could God look at me and know that He willingly traded His child's life so that I could indeed live?  And not only do I live, I have abundant life.  Life that is overflowing.  I am humbled that God made a choice that I never could or would make, to sacrifice His child so that I, with such a wicked heart, could live. 

God didn't ask His son to die for a worthy person, for a king, for a princess, for someone noble.  He gave his son for me.  He gave His son to cover my sin so that I may stand righteous before a holy God.  He gave His son for me, the worst of sinners.  He gave His son for murderers, liars, adulterers, gossips, prostitutes, and each one of us who deserves no grace.  We aren't even close to worthy.  I would never ask my children to lay down their lives for someone like me, and yet my Jesus laid down His life for someone like me.  Unfathomable!

Amazing love, how can it be?  That you my king would die for me?