April 3 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Isaiah 53:

¹Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
²For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
³He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
⁴Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
⁵But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
⁶All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
⁷He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
⁸He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
⁹And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
¹⁰Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
¹¹He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
¹²Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Devotional

John the Baptist pointed to Christ as the Lamb of God, God's Lamb! This Lamb was provided and freely given by God. God "spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." "He is the propitiation for our sins: and not ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." There is no sin excepted. All sin of whatever sort—our iniquity, our transgression, our total depravity, the whole stream of abominations as it wells up out of our hearts by nature, all impurity, and unrighteousness, all wickedness of which we are capable, all evil deeds that ever have been committed and are still committed, repeatedly committed by us—all, all has been atoned for by Christ for his Church.

I hear you ask: But has this Lamb of God carried away my sins? If you do not claim anything in yourself; if you do not build on your own righteousness, but acknowledge your guilt and confess your sins; if you confess with Paul, "But I am carnal, sold under sin," then you may be sure that your sins are taken away. God will remember them no more against you. They are removed from you "so far as the east is from the west." "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."

For this is the assurance of God's own Word: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." You also are God's very own! Behold the Lamb! Behold and adore!

Prayer

Gracious God our Father, we thank Thee that we know that Jesus Christ bore all of our sins, that He made full satisfaction for them all, and that now there is forgiveness with Thee, and mercy and plentious redemption. We thank Thee, that where sin abounded, there grace did much more abound. Father, we pray, grant us a childlike faith to believe that our sins are forgiven. May we sincerely confess them, then we have the assurance that they are forgiven, and that Thou dost cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and dost receive us as Thy well-beloved children in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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Scripture in Devotional: Rom. 8:32; 1 John 2:2; 1:7; Matt. 15:19; Rom. 7:14; Ps. 103:12; Rom. 5:20; 1 John 1:9.

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