I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. (Genesis 3:15)
What was the first thing that came to mind when you read the title for today’s word of encouragement? Perhaps you pictured the view from your last vacation home and it was “to die for.” Maybe you remembered grandma’s homemade apple that was “to die for.” There are many things to which we add the phrase “to die for.” But today, I want to encourage you with the deepest meaning of this phrase, which is all about you. God the Father sent God the Son to die for you. You, Christian, are considered by God as to die for!
Here is the way the storyline of the Bible goes. In the beginning, everything was very good, including the relationship between God and mankind. Adam and Eve were living in a perfect paradise with every imaginable pleasure and only one prohibition: they were not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they did so, God warned, they would die. Our first parents chose to rebel against God; they took and ate from that tree. Immediately they died spiritually and later they would die physically. This death—both spiritual and physical—was passed on to all of their offspring. But God graciously promised to rescue them and reverse the curse, which is the promise we see in our verse for today.
The Lord said that in order for the Redeemer to rescue fallen man by crushing the head of the serpent, His heel would be struck. That promise points us toward the cross, where Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sins—all our sins, past, present, and future. Jesus died in our place, taking the wrath and judgment of God upon Himself. But Jesus, the Seed of the woman, did not stay dead. On that glorious third day He rose from the grave, and today He offers eternal life to anyone who will trust in Him alone for salvation.
How does it make you feel to know God loves you so much that He was willing to die for you? Many people find it difficult to accept the truth that God so desired them. But it is completely true. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Regardless of what anyone might think about you today, in the mind of God, from eternity past, you were to die for!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 