“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23: 46)
The Father abandoned Jesus at the CROSS because of our sins. But Jesus still trusted his Father who abandoned him. He committed his spirit into his Father’s hands.
When Jesus uttered the words, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” he breathed his last. Jesus died. He died for you and I to live. The penalty for our sins is death. But instead of us dying at the CROSS for our sins, Jesus died for us. Jesus demonstrated his ultimate love for us by laying down his life for us.
In this gift of new life we have in Christ, love is everything. We love because God loved us first by sending his Son to die at the CROSS. We love because Christ loved us first by laying down his life at the CROSS. We love because the love of the Spirit is reigning in our hearts.
The greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). The second is to “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). The summary of the teachings of the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments of love.
No man in his natural condition can live a life of love. Only those who experience the love of God through the laying down of the life of Jesus at the CROSS can live such life. The death of Christ at the CROSS gives us this new life. Depending moment by moment on the grace that flowed from the CROSS with the help of the Spirit of Christ, a life of love is our new reality.
The love of Christ demonstrated at the CROSS crushed Satan, paid all our sins, delivered us from the fear of death, and made us victorious over the world. This kind of love is in us. We can now triumph over whatever trials in our lives here on earth until the final day where we will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Only By Grace 