I read this story yesterday and it touched an emotional chord for me. No illustration can completely describe the wonder and power of the cross but stories and illustrations are important to help us grasp realities. I found this story helpful for me to appreciate again the love and goodness of my Saviour. I hope it does the same for you.
Written by Scott Wenig
Written by Scott Wenig
I used to have a good friend named Debbie Johnson. Debbie was beautiful and bright and gifted. She was a wonderful mom to a couple of young boys and the wife of a good friend of mine named Dave. Dave was a pastor here in town. In early 1994 Dave and Debbie Johnson got a call to leave their pastorate in Denver and go back to Minnesota and serve the Lord in a church there. About six months after they went to Minnesota, Debbie was diagnosed with cancer, and about eight months after that she died.
But she didn't have to die. They caught the cancer early on. All they had to do was give her radiation and chemotherapy, but she wouldn't take it. Two months before she was diagnosed with cancer, she found out she was pregnant with their third child, and the treatment for the cancer would have killed the baby, so she said no cancer treatment. She went full term, gave birth to that baby, and then she died. She died so that baby could live.
That's exactly what Jesus did for all of us. He made that huge journey from heaven to find us but also to forgive us of our sin. There is no one in this auditorium who does not need to be found and to be forgiven of sin. You know this as well as I do. Sin grabs us and holds us. It binds us and tangles us up, and then it pulls us down.
