Barabbas, as despicable and dirty as he was, is a picture of me and what happened to him--released from prison and pardoned of his death sentence for his crimes because Jesus was chosen to take his place--is exactly what Jesus did for me too.

The most important thing that we know is what we know about God.

Paul (Ephesians 2: 1-7 The Message)
It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus.

Receive each day as a resurrection from death,
as a new enjoyment of life.
(Wm. Law)