Day 7 - Week 28 - Isaiah 53:6 "We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the LORD has punished Him for the iniquity of us all."

I remember thinking as a little girl (probably around 7 or 8) that if I tried hard enough I could make it through just one day without doing anything wrong.  At night I would think, "tomorrow I won't do one thing that God will be unhappy about."  And the next night I would realize that I would have to try harder the next day, because the current day had not proved me to be the perfect child that I had aspired to be.

Day after day, now for 55+ years, I have committed sin upon sin.  Some have been small sins, some have been doozies!  Some have been sins that I didn't even realize committng until after the fact, and some have been so willful that I cringe when I think of the deception that I followed rather than the truth that I knew was God's way for me.  There are times when I look back and truly say, "WHAT was I thinking??" 

As hard as I have tried and continue to try, I will never attain perfection in God's sight...and you know what?  He knew I never would.  So instead, He took all of those sins that I have piled up over these years, and all the sins that I, no matter how much I try not to, will still commit in the years to come, and placed them on the back of my Savior, my Jesus. 

Now the picture of that load of sin heaped on Jesus' bleeding back puts a deep desire in my heart to follow Him and His way and to avoid the sins of the past, to listen to His voice of direction rather than "turning to my own way" in willful rebellion.  Such rebellion sets us up for detours in our Christian walk and certainly diverts us from blessings that God has in store for us. 

So here I am at 55, still aching to please my God. But the motivation is no longer so I can prove myself worthy of God's love...what I understand so much more fully now than I did then, is that God loved me in spite of my sinfulness and that because of that love, my sins have been covered by the blood of the Lamb. My ability to do right and to do good has no bearing on God's continuing love for me or on my eternal home.  My faith in Jesus Christ as my Savior has everything to do with it.  He took the punishment for all of my sin.  I have a Savior...Jesus is His name...

I have a Saviour, Jesus is his name,

and for every sin in my life, he frees me from blame.

There are many times I’ve wandered from the narrow way,

But his love has always found me, and so I can say:

I have a Saviour, Jesus is his name.

And for every sin in my life, he frees me from blame.

His voice has called me when I walked away from him,

and he placed his arms around me, and he took me in.

Into realms of brightest sunshine, liberty and grace,

That he won at Calvary for the human race.

I have a Saviour, Jesus is his name.

And for every sin in my life, he frees me from blame.

His love has saved me, now I’ll never walk alone.

Now I have a precious Saviour who will lead me home.

He has paid a price for my life that I can’t repay.

He just asks that I would love him, and so I can say:

I have a Saviour, Jesus is his name.

And for every sin in my life, he frees me from blame.

And so I’ll praise him till my life on Earth is through,

for the love that surely guides me every day anew.

And when life on Earth is ended, I’ll still share his love,

praising him with hosts of angels in the realms above.

I have a Saviour, Jesus is his name.

And for every sin in my life, he frees me from blame

© 2006 Ray Jaensch