“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, la ma sa bach tha ni? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46).

Matthew presents for us the agonizing details of the death of Jesus Christ upon the cross. At this very moment, the Lord Jesus in His sinlessness became sin for us. It is an incredible moment in the history of the universe. The Creator took the sins of the creation. He bore them in His own body. The Apostle Peter described it as “Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes you are healed” (1 Peter 2:24). Think of it, friends. During the betrayal, trial, scourging, humiliation, and even the pounding of the nails through His hands and feet, the Lord Jesus was relatively quiet. He spoke very few words from the cross. Then from about noon until 3 o’clock the skies grew very dark. Jesus shrieked in agony as our sins were rolled onto Him and He bore in His own body the horrific wrath of the holy Father in full payment for our sins. The word “forsaken” is the awful, awful abandonment of the holy God.  He forsook His Son as the Lord Jesus became the sacrifice for our sins. He did this for us. Has there ever been a time in your life that you have placed your faith in this incredible Savior? He told us in John 14:6 that “no man comes to the father except by Me.” The Lord Jesus is the one and only way to Heaven. It makes no difference if you are a high paid executive on Wall Street or if you are reading this daily prescription on a computer in your remote village in Africa. The one and only way to Heaven is through the Lord. Have you accepted His marvelous gift of salvation?

For today: The sacrifice of our Lord Jesus is awesome and incredible. How foolish for anyone to think that he or she can get to Heaven by his or her own merits.