“It’s my right. . .”
“Crucify! Crucify!”
But Pilate answered, “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.” The Jews insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”
John 19:6-7
“It’s my right. . .”
“One of the criminals who hung next to Jesus hurled insults at him; ‘Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!’ But the other criminal rebuked him. ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Today you will be with me in paradise.’ At the ninth hour Jesus breathed his last breath.”
Luke 23:39-46
“But it’s my right. . .”
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
John 3:16-17
“But. . . It’s my right!”
It was Jesus’ right to stay in heaven. It was Jesus’ right to choose his life over ours. It was Jesus’ right to live instead of die.
Jesus gave up all of his rights for you, for me, for the drunks, the persecutors, the poor and the weak, the protestors, and even the grouchy neighbor down the street.
It wasn’t easy.
He was separated from his father.
He wept for his friends.
He was challenged by the church.
He was persecuted by the government.
He was ridiculed by the people.
He was whipped and hung on a the cross.
“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
John 15:13
“But. . .it's my right.”
My right as a child of God and a follower of Jesus is to lay my life down and to lay my rights down just as Jesus did.
It is a race to the bottom not a race to the top.
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