What did Jesus ever do for you?

Getting caught up in the day-to-day cares of this life, we may easily forget (if ever we even knew) just what it is that God has "already done" for us in the Lord Jesus Christ.  What is it that Christians are always talking about, anyway?

"What's the big deal?" you may wonder.  What makes Jesus so special?  After all, as many outspoken unbelievers will chant, there are many religions out there, many kinds of gods.  What makes Jesus so special?  What makes Him so different?

The Holy Bible, when taken as a whole, is the One Book that reveals why Jesus is so different.  The Bible tells us about human nature, and the problem of sin -- and how sin has infected even the best of our families, our nations, our efforts and heroes.  And the Bible tells us about a special Someone that would be sent by God, a Christ or Messiah (the Anointed One), a man who was more than just a man.  The Bible -- centuries before Jesus was born -- was already calling the Promised Messiah a Savior, and the Everlasting Father, and even the Mighty God (Isaiah 9:6,7). 

But more than that, the Bible speaks in various places of what Jesus would do that would make Him so special, and so necessary.  Jesus was to be the Lamb of God (as John the Baptist would call Him) that would take away the sin of the world.  At first, it was thought that the Messiah would be Israel's champion (as indeed He was, is, and shall be).  But then, in passages like Isaiah 49:1-6, the Spirit of God revealed that the Christ would also be God's salvation for the whole world.

There are many prophetic promises given throughout the ancient Hebrew Scriptures that point to Jesus, and that tell us of the special things He would do as Messiah and Lord.  But the passage I've chosen to share below tells every human being -- every saint and every sinner -- what Jesus did for all of us. 

If you never pay attention to any other portion of the Holy Bible, make sure you become familiar with this one.  Pray as you read it, and ask the Lord to give you understanding.  This passage was written centuries before Jesus was even born, yet it tells you what Jesus Christ did for you.

The Book of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 53 says:

Who has believed our report?

And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.

He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.

But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.

He was taken from prison and from judgment,
And who will declare His generation?
For He was cut off from the land of the living;
For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.

And they made His grave with the wicked --
But with the rich at His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was any deceit in His mouth.

Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed,
He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.

He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And He was numbered with the transgressors,
And He bore the sin of many,
And made intercession for the transgressors.
(Isaiah 53:1-12)

Even though He was God's eternal Son, without any sin of His own, Jesus willingly went to the cross (as told in the Gospels of the New Testament) to die for our sins.  He suffered and died on the cross that we might be forgiven.  He took away our sins -- your sins.  That means that you can now be made right with God, through faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus died on the cross, was buried in a borrowed tomb, went down into hell itself and then rose up from the dead three days later.  He tasted death for all people, so that all people could have everlasting life.  The Bible, in a New Testament passage, goes even further, saying:

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new... ...God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself...  ...For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."  (2 Corinthians 5:17, 19, 21)

Righteousness is not a small thing with God.  And God's ultimate purpose in this world is to bring everything back around as it should be.  All unrighteousness will be removed forever.  And everything will be set right again.  Whoever loves unrighteousness will also be taken away (and we have all loved some unrighteousness in our lives).

Only Jesus Himself was purely and truly righteous as a human being.  He never sinned.  He never displeased His eternal Father.  He had the right to eternal life.  Yet Jesus took our curse on Himself, took our punishment for sin -- in order that we might become perfectly righteous in God's eyes.  He took the reward that we deserved and gave us the reward that only He rightly deserved.  

As the Lord Jesus Himself said, "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life."  (John 5:24)

And again, He said: "...the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out." (John 6:37)  Jesus will never turn away the sinner who comes to Him in simple faith, hoping to be made clean. That's what Jesus did for you, for me, for everyone.  And all who accept what Jesus has done, all who admit their need of a Savior, all who place their trust in Jesus will receive the gift of eternal life that Jesus has made available.  Now you know what Jesus did for you. 

The question is, what will you do about it?