How do you get your soul happy in Jesus each day? That’s a good question for this conference, isn’t it? One surefire way to do it is to look long and hard at the cross. If you will look long enough, trusting the Spirit by faith to work on your behalf; if you will look long enough, prayerfully pondering the impact and implications of the forgiveness of sins—and this He set aside, nailing it to the cross—if you are there with your Bible in hand, adoring the Lord who hung on that cross and died for you; if you linger there long enough, you are bound to begin to feel something.
When you think of the final beats of Christ’s heart—that His physical heart finally stopped beating for you; when you consider the things that He said as He hung there dying for you: “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing,” or to the repentant thief, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise”; for when you think of the wrath that your sins deserved—each and every one of them, enough to sink you into the lowest hell—and that Jesus suffered them in your place willingly and voluntarily as your substitute; when you think on these things, when you think of the agony of our Lord as He cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”; when you see and hear the angry mob surrounding the cross, cursing Him, mocking Him; when the thought comes home to you—Christ’s life for my life; when you see the Lamb of God nailed to a tree, the very one who takes away your sins—you’ll begin to feel something, you know. You’ll begin to feel something. Love will begin to stir. Joy will come. Hope will rise up. You’ll begin to feel something.
