Parents

Those of us who love our children, are very protective over them.  When harm is done to them, we can become like a lioness, wanting to devour.  I say a lioness because as mothers we are extremely protective over our children.  That's good because I think it is an expression of who God is as a parent.  When harm is done to our child whether be through words or physical pain at the hands of someone else, not only does it makes us angry, it also breaks our heart.  It causes us great pain as mothers.  This week I had a painful reminder of what this feels like, but God has used this opportunity to tell me to think about what He must have felt as they beat, mocked and crucified His only son.  What I described about mothers above, is a characteristic that we get from God, so imagine how God felt.  It says in the bible that Jesus took our punishment for sin.  Knowing no sin, He because sin that we might become the righteousness of God through Him.  This is the exchange system of heaven.  We give Jesus our sin, He gives us His righteousness.  Praise God!  However, something else has come to my attention today.  I always wondered why God chose to give us forgiveness this way, I wondered why he chose to have His son go through all this so that we could be in a right relationship with Him.  Why didn't He do it some other way that did not involve His beloved son going through such pain. God does provide reasons for this in His word, but I want to add something very unique to this, I believe this is inspired by the Holy Spirit.  God's wrath towards sin was fully poured out on the cross, this needed to happen because God is Holy and cannot tolerate sin.  His wrath had to be fully poured out so that we could have forgiveness.  His wrath was fully satisfied, but I believe that it was necessary for it to be His Son in order for His wrath to be fully poured out, because it wasn't only our sin but sin against His son who was completely innocent.  I believe the fact it was God's child, provoked and made possible for that wrath to be fully poured out.  It had to be His child because of the relationship between a parent and child and it was the only relationship that was going to provoke the wrath of God to be fully poured out.  As your child goes through pains in their lives at the hands of others, allow your feelings to turn you to God and what He went through for you.  And remember Jesus was completely innocent and without sin, our children are not innocent as much as we would like to believe that they are:

Psalm 51:5

⁵ Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
And in sin my mother conceived me

 

We are all born into sin.  Our children are no different.  But our protective heart towards them reflects God's heart so let it point you to God.