We're In The List

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8)

My hat is off to soldiers and emergency responders, who go out every day hoping that today isn’t the day that they face dying for someone else. Would you die for someone? I’d like to think that I would die for someone, but I fear I am too much a coward. Many years ago, someone asked me what I would do if I required to choose between drinking hemlock (or some other poison) and denying my faith. I answered that if he had the authority to require that I make that decision, I would drink the poison. That decision has not changed. But would I die for someone else? Would you? Let me put it one step further. Would I die for Hitler, Stalin or BinLaden? Would you die for Jeffrey Dahmer, Jim Jones, or the Sandy Hook or Las Vegas shooters? I think many people would not only say, “No,” but “Hell, no!”

This is one of the reasons I am in awe of God. He didn’t step into the path of a bullet in a trained response. He had eternity past to contemplate the idea. He spent about thirty years getting ready, and three years setting Himself up. He had opportunities to take a different path and He still died for you, and for me.

True, you and I are not Hitlers, Stalins, Maos or BinLadens. Yes, Hitler, Stalin and Mao together are responsible for the deaths of more than one hundred million people (Hitler was the slacker of the World War II bunch.) We aren’t Jeffrey Dahmer, Jim Jones or the Sandy Hook or Las Vegas shooter. There are lots of people we might say are far worse than we, but how many acts of treason does it take to be guilty of treason?

Treason? What treason? Every time we sin, we commit treason. We tell the King that we reject Him and His law. We place ourselves on the throne of our universe. Sin is treason…and yet, He was willing to die for all of them, and for you and for me.