Forsaken by God

In Matthew 27.43, Jesus cries out to the Father, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (ESV). As Jesus is dying on the cross, smitten for us and our sins, being mocked by onlookers, he takes on our sins, bearing the curse of separation from the Father on our behalf.

This morning we heard an exhortation from Rod Conner of To Every Tribe Mission (http://www.toeverytribe.com/) to seek earnestly to bring the Gospel of Christ to all people we can, personally or through other messengers. Tomorrow, our team leaves for Spain to do just that. While the people TETM goes to in remote areas of Mexico and New Guinea are quite different culturally and historically from the people we will be ministering to in Spain or that others in our church body will be ministering to in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio, we see a striking similarity.

Wherever we go, to whomever we minister, everyone who is not believing in Christ is under the curse, forsaken by God the Father. Everyone who is believing in Christ is a recipient of the blessing of God, taking on the life of fellowship with the Father Christ purchased in taking our sin on himself on the cross. This distinctive of Christianity transcends cultural barriers, language barriers, and generational barriers. The message of Jesus crucified, dead, buried, and risen again for our justirication is the message we were given by the apostles and prophets and is the message we will continue to proclaim until Christ's coming to bring his own to their heavenly home.

Let us be diligent in proclaiming to people under the curse the Christ who bore the curse for them.

The Spain team is departing in the morning, expecting to arrive in Osuna on Tuesday afternoon, local time. We'll update you via e-mail and this blog as soon as we are able after we arrive.

Grace and Peace!