Daily devotion – The plan is executed
Here in Matthew’s Gospel the time has come – the hour lays just a short time ahead. The whole reason for Christ’s coming – His death on the Cross by crucifixion.
Mat 16:21
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From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.
What was going through Jesus mind at this time. For more than 30 years Jesus had been out of the picture with only His birth, His circumcision, and His speaking with the teachers at the temple when He was just 12 years old mentioned.
But at the age of approximately 30 years His baptism and His ministry began in earnest.
Jesus was the Son of Man as well as being the Son of God. He was both human and divine – in one.
There are times when I read this passage in Matthew and the other relating passages in the other Gospels of this time of reckoning.
It makes me realise that what Jesus did for us was not on a whim, nor just a moment of courage, but Christ’s whole life, His whole reason for becoming a man was for this time.
The whole series of events had been carefully planned before the world began. Then there was the moment in Heaven when Jesus said it was time for Him to be born in Bethlehem.
Phil 2: 5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
The angels in Heaven must have been in awe when Jesus stepped out of Heaven and into our world.
For all this to be planned and then to occur it must mean that God has a heart for us, does it not?
Tonight as you sleep, know the Good Shepherd is not sleeping but watching over His flock of which you are one.
It’s simply amazing that God would do all of this for us!