For about 5 years now I've had the privilege of sharing my faith publicly through different ministries. Sometimes in a small scale of 1-5 people, sometimes in a little bit bigger scale of 6-15 people, and sometimes to uppers of 150 people at a time. And each and every time I share my story, or testimony, I tell of how I gave my life to Jesus as a young 7 year old boy with my mom before bed one night. But it wasn't until my 21st birthday that I truly "encountered" Jesus on my own and my relationship with Him became personal.
For those of you that have encountered Jesus you know exactly what I mean. It's different for all of us, but the encounter has the same effect on each of us. My hope and prayer during Easter this year, as we look back at what took place some two thousand years ago, is that more people come to encounter Jesus in their own unique, powerful, and supernatural way and truly realize that, He took your place.
When we look at the story of Jesus going to the cross we see the betrayal, arrest, mocking, and sentencing of Him to be crucified as the build up to His death. But there's this one character that we meet prior to Jesus's death that has completely blown me away. When we look at Luke 23:32-43 we see that there were two other criminals that were led to Golgotha to be crucified alongside of Jesus.
Scripture tells us that while Jesus was hanging on the cross that people walked by mocking and yelling insults at Him. The rulers and priests were even involved. Then the bible tells us that even one of the criminals who hung there with Jesus began hurling insults, "Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" If you ask me that sounds about right for a criminal. But what blew me away was the response of the other criminal. He's basically like, "Dude don't you get it?! We deserve this punishment for the crimes we committed! But this man has done nothing wrong yet still has the same sentence that we do!" And the very next thing is what changes the criminals eternity. He says, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And the response we see from Jesus is done in perfect Jesus fashion, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."
What a moment that must have been! You see, this criminal took the simple step of encountering Jesus. Giving your life to Jesus isn't meant to be super complex and difficult. It's actually quite simple. Jesus made the first move by taking your place on the cross and the ball is in your court to go meet Him right now. It doesn't matter what you've done in your past. You could have done things as awful as the criminal in this story where you deserved death, and Jesus would still respond to you. That's not to say that we should go on sinning and living however we want because lets face it, God knows the condition of our hearts. But it does mean that if we've accepted Jesus as our Savior and made Him Lord of our life, that when God looks at you, all he sees is Jesus, because He took your place.
Waiting for God to reach down and give you a sign that you should follow Him or trust Him? Look at the cross, He already did. Now it's your turn to make the next move.
- Mitchel J Wiley
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