We turned our backs on him and looked the other way…
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 (Isaiah 53:3-5 NLT).

Jesus Christ, what a beautiful Savior, Healer, Deliverer, and friend of sinners.  Sin always produces suffering no matter how pleasurable it seems for a season.  How many of us have made decisions based on self-indulgent desires that at the moment seem impossible to deny yet they forebode great misery to come.  Human beings are creatures of regret.  Only when they look back on their wrong choices can they see the truth.

Sin begets regrets but only later and for some much later.  Iniquity, identical to the grave, is never satisfied.  Like the phrase “ You can’t eat just one” sin demands more sin which inevitably ends with judgment. Before you stop reading take heart because Jesus is the friend of sinners.  He does not approve of sin or “wink at it” rather He suffered and died on the cross to take it out of our lives. Forgiveness is in the Lord, but beyond forgiveness, the power of the cross can deliver us from the desire to sin. Any judgment we now face in our lives is due to our stubborn refusal to surrender to Him in all of our ways.

Jesus is the captain of your salvation. He leads you out of sin’s destruction because He bore it for you on the cross. Jesus endured the agony of the cross for you, and as each drop of blood drained from His body He could see you receive Him, laying down your life in honor of Him, and in that, He satisfied His soul. His suffering was not in vain because, in you, He sees his generation declared and His days prolonged on earth.  He is alive for evermore!

The world is desperately waiting for the manifestation of the children of God to emerge.  Jesus seated at the right hand of His Father, lives on in this world through His children. The world is not going to see God’s glorious sons and daughters through “saved sinners” but through overcoming saints saved to the uttermost by the blood of the Lamb. Is that you? Look at Jesus on the cross, body battered and blood-soaked. Embrace the reality of His unparalleled beauty, taking on your sin so that you could live a life with no regrets.  See it, believe it, and be healed.