Pray Our Beloved To Print The Image Of His Bleeding Self Upon The Tablets Of Our Hearts!

Isa 53:3  He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
 
Isa 53:4  Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
 
Isa 53:5  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
 
Pilate delivered our Lord to the Roman lictors to be scourged. 

The Roman scourge was a most dreadful instrument of torture. 

It was made of the sinews of oxen, and sharp bones were intertwined among the sinews; so that every time the lash came down, these pieces of bone inflicted fearful laceration and tore off the flesh from the bone. 

The Savior was, no doubt, bound to the whipping post and thus beaten. 

He had been beaten before; but this flagellation of the Roman lictors was probably the most severe of His scourgings.

My soul, stand here and weep over His poor stricken body! 

Believer, can you gaze upon Him without tears as He stands before you, the mirror of agonizing love? 

He is at once as white as the lily for innocence, and as red as the rose with the crimson of His own blood.

As we feel the sure and blessed healing that His stripes have wrought in us-does not our heart melt at once with love and grief?

If ever we have loved our Lord Jesus, surely we must feel that affection glowing now within our bosoms.

We would be compelled to go to our chambers and weep, but our business calls us away. 

So we will first pray our Beloved to print the image of His bleeding self upon the tablets of our hearts all the day...

And at nightfall we will return to commune with Him and sorrow that our sin should have cost Him so dearly!

~Charles Spurgeon~