The Depth of Christ's Sacrifice and Our Response

i'll never forget in my life that day when the lord opened my eyes to that truth it changed my whole attitude to to the lord to serving him and even to imagining that i had made any sacrifice in my life what stupidity to think some little thing we give up we call it sacrifice i realized what we call sacrifices like a drop in the ocean not even a drop when you think of when you meditate on that i mean if you haven't you can hear me say this and you understood it in your head and you can go and tell the same repeat this in some message this is what jesus went through in gethsemane but it hasn't gripped your heart i tell you if it grips your heart you'll mourn [00:13:50]

it was to save me from eternal hell that jesus was willing to choose that which was the most difficult thing of all so what does it mean the slain lamb means what is the slaying part of it is it just the whipping the crown of thorns the pain of the nails that's not the slain part that's all the physical thing the mocking the scoring jesus would have gone through a hundred thousand of those things for me the slain part of the lamb was he was forsaken by the father that is the real meaning of slain means killed death for jesus death was not physical death it was there was only one definition of death in jesus life and that was my fellowship of the father is broken [00:14:58]

i want to have that definition of death in my life that is the only definition of death i want to have in my life my fellowship with the father is broken and i'll tell you when it is broken when you don't forgive somebody who hurt you when you don't ask forgiveness from somebody you hurt whether you know it or not that moment your fellowship with the father is broken but we got so used to living out of fellowship with the father that we don't even notice it it's like people who got leprosy i've heard of people who had leprosy you know the leprosy you lose sensation in your parts of your body believe it or not [00:15:55]

pain is one of the greatest gifts that god has given man it's pain that indicates that you're sick you go to a doctor before you get before you die of that sickness pain in your stomach or head or somewhere pain is the indicator of something god has put it in in there to warn us and i if you don't feel a pain in your conscience when you got a wrong attitude towards someone or when you do something for your own glory you don't feel a pain lord that was evil me touching the glory of god me preaching a sermon and trying to get some glory for myself oh god forgive me do i see how terrible that is [00:16:57]

this is the slain lamb this is what he died for he died because he knew i'd do all these things and he had to take the what in leviticus is called the uh not leviticus in exodus it is called the iniquity of the holy things the high priest had to have this thing on his head called holy unto the lord to take the iniquity of the holy things the iniquity of my holy activities what is the iniquity in my holy activities my preaching a sermon and getting some honor for myself other people want money for themselves but you maybe you you want to honor as bad as the man who's preaching for money [00:17:44]

the only thing that jesus wanted was to glorify the father and the slain lamb what is the thing that broke his fellowship it was if fellowship was broken that's the only thing that brought mourning he never mourned for anything else he had no tears for his own griefs but sweat drops of blood for mine that i would be eternally lost he had sweat drops of blood for that what was the greatest grief he was going through that he lose fellowship with the father even for a moment so let's not take that lightly let's never sing of calvary lightly [00:18:47]

i want to genuinely have sorrow in my heart even if there's tears no tears my eyes whenever i think about the cross that jesus died for me i stand amazed in the presence of jesus and wonder how he could love me a sinner he had no tears for his own dreams and we never never sing about the cross lightly my brothers it's a fresh song in heaven when you get to heaven you will every time you sing about it it'll be oh as if i've never heard it before you mean jesus died for a sinner like me yes i wanted to be that's what was my prayer for myself anyway [00:20:02]

i want to say one last thing about this matter of sharing the word you know uh you know in a very intellectual crowd like nccf is it's easy to get a lot of honor when you share clever things when you go down to the villages in india where i've spent a lot of many years preaching more than 40 years they're not interested in all these clever clever statements they you got to share something with them to help them in their life in a very simple way the way jesus spoke jesus spoke in a very simple way and i thought of it like this for myself [00:20:58]

in my younger days i made the same mistake myself i wanted to impress i wanted to preach and i wanna i remember recently listening to a message of mine which i preached in 1972 i was a young 32 year old person that those days sincere but immature and i hadn't really experienced the genuine fullness of the spirit at that time but i had some degree of anointing good message people appreciated it but when i listened to it it's so obvious to me this guy is trying to impress people it's so obvious to me this guy and that is me so i've learned to be merciful to people because i was like that myself [00:21:38]

it's by my life and by my words not bear witness then it'll be only words be be a witness means life and words in other words the life is packaged in the words remember that the life must be practiced in the words and that's being a witness so it's like this uh you know the words are not fanciful and wonderful it doesn't matter i mean if i'm presenting a person a diamond very expensive diamond or hundreds of thousands of dollars and i wrap it up in old newspaper and i give it to the person he does he said what's his newspaper but he opens it up and says wow hundreds of thousands of dollars he's not bothered that it was in the newspaper [00:22:32]

dear brothers and sisters pursue life yeah and it doesn't matter if you can't express it as wonderfully as that clever brother can doesn't matter at all do the best you can and god's anointing will be there he'll back it up and he will minister to people yeah just remember you know i thought of meekness today i was trying to understand the word meekness it comes four times in the gospel of matthew blessed are the meek or they shall inherit the earth and nasa says gentle gentle or meek i've never it's one of the most difficult words to understand humility pride poor in spirit righteous hungering thirsting righteousness and all that much but meek until i saw it [00:24:50]

i know i get a lot of honor like the donkey got a lot of honor they imagine never in his life had that donkey walked on fancy clothes on the ground nobody threw all that down and if that donkey was stupid to think that they were all appreciating him he's got to be really crazy and people appreciate us but it's because they see christ in us i have a picture in front of me in my table i've had it for some years i want you to see it is jesus riding on a donkey and you know when they went to pick up the donkey jesus said if anybody asks you why are you taking this say the lord has need of him [00:26:32]