My Substitute

January 18, 2022

My Substitute

Substitute means - something or someone that you use instead of something or someone else.

Have you ever been following a recipe and didn't have one of the ingredients, so instead you used the next best thing you could find?

or think about a football team - they keep players on the bench to be substitutes when needed. But a football team will send it's best players out first.

God sent his best to take our place. There was no other alternative. Jesus - The Son of God - the Word of God - left the splendour of heaven and became flesh which means he became human. He came down to our level - he was tempted in every way like we are but yet he did no sin.

Jesus wasn't God's next best thing - He was God's very best.

Sending Jesus wasn't a second thought after creation when man had messed things up - but we are told that this plan of Salvation was from before creation. This is difficult for our human understanding, but what we must focus on is - why?

God loves each one of us so much that he had a perfect plan to save us and to redeem us back to himself. It may be a great mystery to many but it is important that you know - that because of his great love - he made a way for you.

The great mystery is that God had a plan to rescue you personally. He sees and knows each one of us and desires a personal relationship with each one individually.

When we come to the realisation that it was our sin and our sickness that Jesus suffered on the cross - and we make it personal - then we will enter into a great joy. Knowing that Jesus took my sin and my sickness so now I am free as I receive what he did for me.

God didn't wait to see how good and successful you would be at life before making a way for you. We all have sinned and we know no-one is good. But before we were even born - He worked Salvation for us.

Jesus was your substitute and mine. It was your sin and your pain that he suffered. Just like it was my sin and my pain. He died in your place and in my place, instead of us. He took the death penalty that belonged to you and me - so that we could be free. He died a cruel death so that we could live the best life that Father God had designed each one of us for.

As you read these verses from Isaiah 53 - take careful note - make it personal.

Who has believed our message?

    To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,
    like a root in dry ground.
There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
    nothing to attract us to him.
3 He was despised and rejected—
    a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
    He was despised, and we did not care.

4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
    it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
    a punishment for his own sins!
5 But he was pierced for our rebellion,
    crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
    He was whipped so we could be healed.
6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
    We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
    the sins of us all.

7 He was oppressed and treated harshly,
    yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
    And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
    he did not open his mouth.
8 Unjustly condemned,
    he was led away.
No one cared that he died without descendants,
    that his life was cut short in midstream.
But he was struck down
    for the rebellion of my people.
9 He had done no wrong
    and had never deceived anyone.
But he was buried like a criminal;
    he was put in a rich man’s grave.

10 But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him
    and cause him grief.
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
    he will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
    and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands.
11 When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
    he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
    my righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
    for he will bear all their sins.
12 I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier,
    because he exposed himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.

He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.

Father God I thank you for your great love for me, that you send Jesus to pay the debt that I could never pay. I believe that Jesus Christ is your Son and that He suffered in my place and I ask you to reveal this great mystery to me that I may live the rest of my days in the fulness of joy, knowing that I have been set free. Amen.