We all know that Jesus was brutally flogged and then nailed to a cross to die a terrible and painful death.  But the kind of suffering and death he went through was not that uncommon in his day.  Lots of people were flogged, and crucifixion was a normal tool for Roman capital punishment.

What makes Jesus death way different (besides the fact of his innocence) is that Jesus died voluntarily.  If a bunch of trained soldiers tie you up to a post and proceed to whip the flesh from your back, there’s probably not much you could do about it.  And if your limbs are connected to wooden beams by iron spikes driven through your hands and feet, what are you going to do?  But at any point, Jesus could have snapped his fingers and stopped it all.  I doubt you or I would have the strength and commitment to endure that kind of torture for more than a few minutes if we had the power to end it.  But Jesus held strong for hours of gruesome pain and suffering until his body couldn’t take any more and finally died.

Praise the Lord for his dedication, because otherwise none of us would have any hope.

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When you were a kid did you ever get in trouble?  What did your folks do about it?  Did you deserve the punishment?  Did it help you learn to do better?  Has your life benefited from correction or discipline?

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CHAPTER ELEVEN – Why Does a Dog Wag Its Tail?

I love it when a plan comes together.  And one of the really cool things about God is that he has a great plan.

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CHAPTER TEN – Rock On

What is your life built on?  Do you base your beliefs on anything solid, or is it just the way you feel?  Would you like to be sure about who you are and where you’re going in life, and what the purpose of all this is?

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Repent…for the end is nigh!

Have you noticed how many people these days are predicting the end of the world?

Do you ever worry about that?

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CHAPTER NINE – Remember

Have you ever set down your car keys and forgot where you put them?  How about the remote control?  Ever lost anything really important?

How do you go about remembering what’s most important?

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Have you ever heard of the question about what would happen if you were to go back in time and kill your own grandfather?  If you could do that, then you could never have been born, making it impossible for you to go back in time in the first place.  It’s one of those “chicken or the egg” questions that’s a bit hard to answer.

The real question is, what is your destiny?  And better yet, how do you know?

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CHAPTER EIGHT – More Than Conquerors

Have you ever done something wrong and you wish you could go back and change things?  Probably just about everybody has.  And since we haven’t yet figured out the whole time travel thing, we have to figure out some other way to deal with those situations.  So what do you do with those kinds of problems?

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CHAPTER SEVEN – Sin Trap

Why do you think some people break the law?  Murderers and robbers and corrupt politicians obviously have some sort of motivation for what they do.  Do you think it’s because they don’t think there will be any repercussions for their actions?  Or maybe they think the payoffs will outweigh the damage done.  Or maybe they’re ultimately just not that smart.

Another good question to ask might be, why do some people obey the law?  Why would somebody live a peaceful moral life?  These days it seems like the law keepers take more of a beating from society than the law breakers.  Do you ever wonder why that is?

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What if you found out that there was going to be an attack against your town?  In one week, missiles and bombs would begin to fall.  And you were the only one in town who knew about it.  So the only way to save all those people would be to evacuate everybody to bomb shelters or get them out of town.  Would you bother trying to tell anybody?  How about family or friends?  Or would you leave all by yourself, and let everybody in town die?

What if you tried telling people, and nobody believed you?  Why should they believe you?  How hard would you try to convince them?  How easily would you give up?

This is the dilemma that faces every Christian.  All believers are commanded by their Lord and Savior to make disciples and to teach people to obey the commands of Jesus.  In other words, they are to save lives by making Christ followers out of sinners, who are otherwise doomed to Hell.  Missiles and bombs might kill people’s bodies, but people who die with their backs to God suffer an eternal death that is described as a lake of fire.  So, obviously that would be worse than any kind of death we could imagine on Earth–and since our soul is eternal the torment would never end.

So, knowing that, how hard do you try to tell the world what Jesus commanded?  Do you share the message of salvation with anybody–friends, family, neighbors?  What if they don’t believe you?  How hard to you try to convince them?  How easily would you give up?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:44 — 24.6MB)