Will You be Defiant till Your Last Breath?

There are some people who, like the thief on the cross on Jesus’s left, are defiant till their last breath. He had nothing to lose. Why then did he rail on Jesus?

He joined the band of hypocritical mockers to berate the innocent man crucified next to him.

Nevertheless, the picture of the thief hanging on the cross on Jesus’s right must represent the heart of anyone who truly comes to Jesus. Such a person must understand that the punishment of sin that he is suffering is really of his own making.

The condemned thief was dying. He knew he had nothing left to lose but his life. And he made one final decision that turned out to be the best decision he would ever make. He put his trust in the Man dying on the cross next to him. He chose to believe that a man that seemed powerless to the death that gripped them both somehow had the power to save his soul from eternal damnation.

All he had was the hope of a dying man.

If the people in world would only realize: we are all going to die anyway, so what have we to lose if we put our trust in God? Why would you remain defiant in sin? Why would you be defiant till your piteous end?

You on the ground jeering at the lifted Messiah, don’t think you are any better than the thieves on hanging by Jesus’s side. You are either the one on the left or the one on the right.

Even on the cross, we have a perfect allegory of the eternal decision that God commands us to make. Either you decide, like the thief on the left, to shun the salvation that God brings in the disguised package of His exalted Son or, like the thief on the right, embrace the grace and mercy of God.

Either way, death is inevitable. It is the closing curtain that ends this play called LIFE. If anyone misses the opportunity to make the right choice, what could have been a happy ending turns into a solemn tragedy.