Poster Archive : MARCH 2011
Message: Jesus did a trade... his life for yours
Bible verse: "...you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot." (1 Peter 1: 18-19)
Want to live? Then trade. Barter, deal, exchange, do what you can with what you've got. If you've got time and expertise then swap it for money. Then swap the money for goods and services. This is the way the world works. It's how we survive.
If you have nothing to offer, no skill or ideas, no strength or money, land or goods, then you'd better hope that somewhere, someone cares for you, that somehow there's welfare. Otherwise you're doomed. Because, frankly, with nothing to trade for such basics as food, clothing and shelter, your time is short, and you won't survive.
If you can get it, the easiest and best thing to trade with is money. It buys nearly every luxury imaginable. However, there is something you can't buy with money. Favour with God. That's because there's nothing God can buy that He doesn't already own. After all, He made the world! He runs the universe.
So, what can we do? In the blink of an eye our lives will be over and we'll be facing a God who's disappointed with how we've lived. Our lives will be judged and found lacking.
Is there nothing to do at all? Well yes, there is. There's a trade you can get in on that will help. It was actually organised by God himself but it's not a money trade. Jesus, God's son, did the trade. Now Jesus was a carpenter who lived and died 2000 years ago. If he worked today he'd probably be called a 'tradie'.
But it's another kind of trade we're talking about. Jesus traded his life. He exchanged it to pay for the sin of the whole world by dying on a cross so that we could live.
This is how Peter, one of Jesus's disciples describes the benefits of the trade in the Bible:
"...you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot."
So Jesus traded his life. On the cross, He shed his blood as a payment for our sin. You could say, 'Jesus did a trade, his life for yours'. After his death, Jesus rose again because death had no hold on him. So if you turn to Jesus now, you will survive when you meet God face to face. Great news indeed!
Prayer: Dear God, thank you that you loved me so much that you traded your son's life for mine to pay for my sin. Amen
