"To Be Accepted"

"For He hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath He hid His face from him; but when he cried unto Him, He heard." (Psalms 22:24) Oh, how we are loved by our Heavenly Father! If we could only grasp how much His love is for us, it would be more than are hearts could handle, and we would suffer and die from heart failure. Seeing what the Father had allowed to be perpetrated His Son, and that it was for one such as me, I am broken in my spirit just thinking about the many times that I have rejected that great love the Father has for me, and the affliction that Jesus took for my sins. Is it not enough that He should have come to save me from my sins, but He continues making intercession for me before the Father; as the one who not only took my place upon that cross, but also pleads my case before His Father. This was the Father's doing all along; do you see what that means? "For God so loved the world" is that which He has declared, and that which He has accomplished, because it was that which He had longed to do for us, that we would be accepted in His sight! And it was all accomplished by His Son, who not only bore our iniquities, but then has forgiven us Himself for having nailed Him to that cross! We might not really know how to forgive someone like He forgave us, because it takes a certain love that we really do not have the capacity to comprehend; but what we can do, is to accepted His love for us, and then to believe that He has accepted us based upon His love for us; not based upon our merit, but His great love. As I read this verse, I can't help but think how Jesus must have felt in His spirit, as He gazed about as people stood around Him looking upon His broken body upon that cross. How it must have brought Him so much anguish to look upon those who would reject His act of love for them, knowing the hearts of those who gazed upon Him, and seeing the disdain they held in their hearts against Him. Yet, He pleaded for the Father to forgive them, and pleaded it as a case of ignorance, saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do". The Father despised not the affliction of His Son, because it was His will that His Son should suffer on our behalf; nor did He abhor what was done to Him, because His punishment was being taken in our place. That is what it means when Jesus is call "The Lamb of God", because He is as innocent of the punishment that He received as a lamb that is slaughter for a sacrifice, and He was the Sacrificial Offering of God; provided by God, approved by God, and accepted by God... "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the World!" (John 1:29)