Words of Wisdom for the Weekend ~ "Consider Him Who Endured From Sinners"

"What is the meaning of all this? 

Why is He going to the cross and to that death? 

There is only one answer to that question. Sin is the cause; and sin is something that can be death with in that way only, and in no other. Sin is something, let me say it with reverence, that has created a problem even in heaven. It is as profound a problem as that, and we must start by realizing this. Sin in you and in me is something that caused the Son of God to sweat drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. It caused Him to endure all the agony and the suffering to which He was subjection. And finally it caused Him to die upon the cross . . .  

. . . what we have to realize is that, because we are what we are, the Son of God had to come from heaven and go through all of that, and even die that cruel death upon the cross. You and I are such that all that became necessary. Such is this pollution of sin that is in us. We can never look too often at the nature of sin and its consequences. One of the most direct roads to holiness, always, is to consider Him and His suffering and agony. Nowhere is the nature of sin displayed in such a terrible and awful colours as in the death of the blessed Son of God. 

. . . Man, according to the Scriptures, was meant to live entirely to the glory of God. He was meant to love the Lord God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind, and with all his strength. The whole man of God was meant to glorify God. Therefore, any desire to glorify self or safeguard the interest of self is of necessity a sin, because I am looking at God and seeking His honour and glory, and it is that very thing in man which God has condemned. It is that which is under the curse of God and the wrath of God . . . holiness eventually means this, deliverance from this self-centred life. 

. . . if we say we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and believe that He has died for our sins, it means that our greatest desire should be to die to self. That is the final purpose of His dying, not merely that we might be forgiven, or that we might be saved from hell. Rather it was that a new people might be formed, a new humanity, a new creation, and that a new kingdom be set up, consisting of people like Himself. 

I have finished with self, I have died to myself, and my one concern now is the glory and honour of God."

~D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount [emphasis added]

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{Words for Wisdom for the Weekend: These are words that I have been challenged or encouraged by that I have read throughout my week that I kept pondering; words that I couldn't get off my mind and heart throughout my week. 

For other Words of Wisdom for the Weekend posts see here.}