A gentleman was traveling shortly after the terrible civil war which some years ago, brought woe and sorrow on this country. On coming to a retired spot he observed a man who was occupied over a newly made grave, planting flowers and watering them with his tears.
Attracted by his evident distress, the gentleman turned to express his sympathy, and said, “You are in sorrow, my friend; no doubt mourning a beloved wife?”
“No, sir,” replied the man, “I have no wife.”
“Then an only, loved child?”
“No, sir,” replied the man, “I have no child.”
“Well my friend, to whose memory have you raised this grave?”
“Sir,” he answered, the tears, coursing down his cheeks, “I am planting these flowers, I am shedding these tears to the man who died for me. I was called to the war; he came forward and took my place. I had nothing to lose. He had a father and a mother; he left all for me. On going to make inquiry for him I found that he had fallen. He had died for me; and I came back and made this grave to his memory.” Shortly afterward there was put up over the grave this simple inscription.
“To the Man Who Died for Me.”
Dear reader, does not this little touching incident speak to your heart? Does it not recall to your mind One who had all to lose—who left His Father’s side-turned His back on all the joys of heaven—emptied Himself of the glories that surrounded Him there, came down to this world to take your place? He met the foe—He conquered Satan. In the sinner’s stead He tasted death. “He suffered for sins the just for the unjust that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh.” And why? Because He loved us. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” And He so loved—that He gave Himself. “Christ hath loved us, and given Himself for us.”
Can you then, dear reader, say, with thankful joy, of Jesus “He is the Man who died for me?” If it be so—if in His grace, He has opened your eyes to see that He hung on Calvary’s cross in your stead; that that precious, stainless, holy life yielded there was to be your ransom—then are you now living to prove your love to Him? Is your heart’s daily breathing, “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God; who loved me and gave Himself for me?” Surely, when He left all (for He had all to lose!), we may well now be willing to surrender ourselves, our hearts, our lives, our little worthless all to the man, the God-Man, who died for us.
And you dear unsaved one, as yet a stranger to this love, O! think of the yearning heart of Jesus as He now sits at the Father’s right hand—still loving on, still longing on—over you and each weary, sin-laden one whom he sees hurrying on to the death—the everlasting death—from which He died to redeem you!
O! Yield yourself to Jesus; believe in Him as the One who has died in your stead, but who lives to die no more, and then you too will be free from Satan’s power, free to live to Him who died for you!