Eyes Up: 5 Days of Trusting God’s Heart by Tracing His Hand Mfano

Jesus is the One who knows what it is to be high and lifted as the glorious God that He is. Yes, Jesus is the One who also knows what it is to be humble and brought low as an ordinary human. He’s also the One who knows what’s it’s like to be a hit-taking human on behalf of other humans.

Accusation and shame headed straight for you and for me, and Jesus stepped in to absorb it all in our place. I’ll take on whatever her faults deserve. That’s the message of the cross, you know. Some of the blows in this life—you didn’t deserve them. That’s called suffering, but others, well, you do deserve them because you did wrong, and you know it. That’s called sin. As Romans says, we’ve all sinned. Sin requires payment—a score settled before God, all our wrongs made right. The price for those sins? Death. Blood.

The judgment rightly reserved for all that sin was waiting for us. The cross was a place you (and I, and all of us) were destined for, metaphorically speaking. Yet we didn’t have to go there or suffer or pay for our wrongs. Jesus went to the cross so we wouldn’t have to, so he could take the hit for us and clean our record and pay for all that sin. All the shame associated with it is gone. How? Because he was without sin. He was the only one qualified to pay the bill on our behalf.

Friend, are you feeling the place of rest and restitution that Jesus is for you? I know you may have a heart or a life that feels shattered, and I get that. All our pieces are put back together in the presence of a Savior who says, "Sit with me. I've come to bring new life, living water, and my body was broken for you."

He’s the only One who has gone to death's lengths to prove his love and pay for all the sin and suffering that has taken a toll on your story.

There are a million more things we could lift our eyes to when it comes to Jesus, but here’s the last thing we’ll talk about now—and it’s so good. It is the whole climactic point of the story of Jesus.

Here it is: Jesus didn’t just go through death on your behalf. He came out on the other side of death, alive.

Jesus died, and He came back to life. Your Jesus, your God, your Christ, defeated the world’s biggest enemy. The enemy that none of us has any power over in the end. Yet Jesus does.