Behold the Lion of GodNäide

Day 1

You walk through the African bushveld.

It's just you and the tall grass of the Kalahari.

You feel the wind on your face and in your hair.

You think about life while you experience a peace like none before.

When all of a sudden, you hear the sound that every animal fears.

The roar of a lion.

The peace you experienced is gone within the blink of an eye.

Your mind is filled with one thought.

How far is that lion?

That encounter you have just experienced is the same feeling the devil and his cohorts experienced two thousand years ago. They thought they had won the war. They thought the Lamb of God was defeated. But then the unimaginable happened.

The Lamb became a Lion. And His roar is a roar of salvation. His roar is a roar of victory. His roar is a roar of freedom. His roar is the sound that ushered in the Kingdom of God.

The Bible says in Revelation 5:5 that Jesus is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah. So why is Jesus referred to as the Lion? And not just any lion. But THE Lion of the tribe of Judah? In this plan, we will discover some characteristics of a lion and why Scripture refers to Jesus as the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

When a lion cub is born, the young ones have marks that look like dots all over their body. These marks are peculiar because they are quite evident when the cubs are still young, but when they grow older, the dotted marks start to fade away. When a lion reaches maturity, you won't see those dotted marks anymore. Perhaps only a few battle scars.

The life of Jesus as the Lamb of God ended with marks on His body. And the life of Jesus as the Lion of God started with marks on His body. Isaiah 53:5-6 says that we are healed by the stripes of Jesus. Throughout the process of crucifixion, Jesus endured a lot of marks on His body. From plucking His beard, to whipping Him with lashes that tore His flesh apart, to the crown of thorns that pierced His head, to getting hit on the head with clubs, and finally those 3 nails and spear that He received on the cross. Without a doubt, Jesus' body was full of marks when they took Him off the cross. From that glorious day when Jesus rose from the grave by the Spirit of the Living God, He began His reign as a Lion. After the Resurrection, when He appeared to His disciples again, He showed Thomas His pierced side and nail-scarred hands.

Unlike a lion cub's marks that fade away after time, the marks of the nails and the spear are on the body of Jesus forever and ever. The only difference is that those marks are no longer random stripes and gashes like on Calvary. God the Father took those stripes in 3 days and turned them into the words "King of kings. Lord of lords."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the One we fix our eyes upon and say, "Behold the Lion of God".