Few stories in the Bible exemplify the Gospel more completely than the story of the thief on the Cross (Luke 23).
It's all there in five short verses; confession, repentance, recognition of Jesus as the Messiah and complete dependence on Him. The thief had no time to make up for all the evil he'd perpetrated on others. He had no good deeds to his name. He couldn't possibly rely on his good deeds to outweigh the bad, and he knew it. In case you didn't know this already, neither can any of us.39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.[d]”
43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
I love this song!
No comments:
Post a Comment