Christ died for us - Romans 5:8

Romans 5:8  “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (NIV).

   Imagine if someone had died for you.  How would you feel knowing someone had saved you, and that he or she was now gone?
   When I was in the sixth grade I was the Captain of Safety Patrols at Columbia Elementary School.  Though thirty-seven years ago, I still feel honored to have been the safety patrol leader.  I took my job seriously.  I was dedicated to my work ensuring students at Columbia were safe in traveling to and from our school.  I wore the orange belt with pride, never leaving the house without it, and even folding it every afternoon according to standard safety patrol procedure.  I aimed to be myself with students, yet I committed to bringing a halt to any action which could bring injury or which was against school rules.  Then near the end of the year, I gained a huge distinction.  It was announced at my school I had earned an award from Fairfax County for being the second best safety patrol in the county for that school year.  Then I learned who received the award for the best patrol in our county: a sixth grade girl at another elementary school who had saved a boy’s life.  The young boy had walked out in the road in front of an approaching school bus.  The safety patrol darted in the road, pushed the boy away from the path of the bus, and lunged herself away so no one was hit by the bus.  Had the girl not pushed the boy out of the way, the bus may have swerved to miss the boy.  Or the bus may have hit him and he may have suffered certain injuries.  However the most likely scenario was that boy would have been killed.  That elementary school safety patrol likely saved that boy’s life.  And that girl could have died saving the boy.  She could have pushed him out of the way just in time but then have been unable to lunge herself out of the way.  She could have died.  She was willing to risk her life to save a boy.
   I do not know her motivation for saving the boy.  Maybe she did it out of a sense of duty as a patrol.  Or maybe she was simply a loving person who cared for the safety of a kid at the risk of her own life. That young boy must be in his forties now.  I wonder if he sometimes thinks of that girl saving him back in 1979?
   Christians often state, “Jesus died for you,” or “Jesus died for us.”  Yet why would anyone need someone who was crucified on a cross about two thousand years ago?  The answer is people need God to be sustained eternally, yet people have been separated from God and done wrong stuff ever since.  The separation was due to sin, and the continued straying is sinful, sin being that which is contrary to God’s holy will.  The sad reality is that people, even the most moral of people, even the nicest of people, even the most gifted of human beings, even the smartest of human beings, and, I must admit, even sixth graders who are Captain of the Safety Patrols, sin.  The result of any sin is spiritual death.  Romans 6:23 states, “For the wages of sin is death…”  Thus all of us need a Savior.
   The radical revelation in the Scripture is that a Person has died for all of us, the sole Person with the capability to save people from the wages of sin.  Jesus, God the Son, died a death on behalf of people.  He who was without sin took the punishment we deserved.  He suffered the consequences we should have suffered.  “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  And why did He do it?  Looking at the entire verse, we learn the reason: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8 NIV).
   Yet what Jesus has done is a gift you must receive.  Being not just a temporary salvation, this salvation involves a new way of life for eternity, and you get to make the choice as to whether you will be saved, changed, and alive with Jesus for forever.  Every person has the opportunity to make that choice.  If you believe in Jesus, He will be your Savior, and you will be saved from spiritual death in hell, and you will have everlasting life with the LORD God Almighty.  Jesus died for us.
Hunter