Cry for the Lost

Devotion

5-19-10

 

Cry for the Lost

Luke 23: 27-28

“And there were following Him a great multitude of the people, and of women who were mourning and lamenting Him.  But Jesus turning to them said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.”

 

The road to suffering that Jesus took is often thought of, in our minds, as a great walk of pain for our Savior, and to our way of thinking and understanding, it was. Yet Jesus spoke some very interesting words on that journey to the cross, words that cause me to think deeper into the depth of the suffering He really boar for each of us.

 

In Luke 23:27-28 Jesus says to the women who are aching and mourning for His pain, that they should not cry for Him but for themselves.  What could He have meant? Why would He tell them to cry for themselves and their children?  Reading this I was captivated by it. It is a part of the walk to Calvary that I have never heard spoken about and yet it is there in His word for a reason.  He wants us to understand something by His statement.  I have pondered this, asking the Lord to clarify what He wants to tell us today through this.

 

“Stop weeping for Me”. “Stop weeping for Me”. Oh my goodness.  He wants us to understand that the importance of His death is not to be focused on His pain, but upon the pain of our own lives and the lives of those we love who will not follow Him down the salvation road.  Not that we must latterly go through what He went through, but that without accepting His walk, His life, His death and resurrection, we ourselves would face a suffering greater than what He endured.  Greater!!! Do we understand what that means? 

 

When we think of the painful beatings, the nails in His hands and feet, the sword in His side, and the suffocation on the cross; we ache that He suffered so terrible for us and yet He does not want us to cry for Him.  “Stop”, He said, “Stop crying for Me.”

 

The Lord wants us to ache for the lost, not for Him.  He wants us to mourn for the lost, not for Him.  There is no reason to mourn for Him, He is alive!  But those who are lost are dying and going to hell, separated from the love of God forever into eternal suffering.  That is what He wants us to cry about.

 

We must stop focusing on the pain of the sacrifice and focus instead on the fact that He wants us to cry for the lost and tell them of the LIFE He has provided for them through His sacrifice. We must cry for those who need Jesus, cry out for them, and reach out to them to lead them to Christ.