“There is no substitute for human blood.” I was getting ready to give blood and was reading the papers I needed to sign before getting in line to donate. The handbook stated that blood can’t be manufactured in a lab or taken from an animal; people are the only source of this life-giving fluid.
When you give a pint of this miracle liquid, it is tested for disease and your blood type is determined. The blood is then separated into three parts: red cells, plasma and platelets. Each part can be used to treat a different patient; hence a single blood donation may help save as many as three lives! Your body replaces the liquid volume in 24 hours. The red blood cells take several months to regenerate.
I had donated blood before, and I knew that, because of my blood type, I was a “universal donor.” That meant that my blood could be used for most patients even if it didn’t perfectly match the recipient’s blood type. It’s hard to explain how good it felt to help out my fellow-humans this way. I learned that one in three people will need blood sometime during their life: after an accident, during a major surgery or because of blood diseases, to name just a few reasons.
Grandpa Lee
There is a story in our family about the time Grandpa Lee drank creek water and got typhoid fever. This was before modern medicines. He was very sick; doctors said he needed a blood transfusion. Since blood banks did not exist, his father-in-law went down to the fire station. He drove each fireman to the hospital, one by one, to have their blood tested. Would anyone be a match? None of the firemen had the correct blood type! Then their wives volunteered to get their blood tested. He took them to the hospital one by one until, finally, one of the women’s blood samples matched Grandpa Lee’s. She kindly donated what was needed, and he recovered.
Years later, my aunt and uncle decided to regularly donate blood to their local blood bank. They made many trips to the blood bank over the years to “anonymously share this vital, personal gift,” in my uncle’s words. A pint of blood was taken from their veins at each visit, until they had donated gallons and gallons for the needs of unknown strangers. God will reward them in a future day. He has a record of this, as He does of everything we do with our bodies. Are my relatives in heaven because they so generously gave this valuable gift? No! Years earlier they had trusted in the blood of Another to take away their sins. Heaven’s doors opened to them when they died because they came under the shelter of the blood of Jesus Christ.
The True Universal Donor
You see, as there is no substitute for human blood, there is also, more importantly, no substitute for Jesus’ blood. He is the true Universal Donor. Human blood can keep people alive here on earth for maybe 100 years. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can make us clean and fit to live FOREVER in God’s presence. This offer is open to all who will receive it.
The Bible tells the story of a Roman soldier who saw Jesus hanging on the cross after He had already died. He stuck his spear into Jesus’ side, thinking, perhaps, to dishonor His blessed body. But out of that spear wound came the blood that saves us. Jesus was our Substitute. His blood spilled out on the ground at the foot of the cross. He gave His life so that we sinners can be saved and come to heaven to live with Him when our lives on earth are over. “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus ... through faith in His blood” (Romans 3:24-2524Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; (Romans 3:24‑25)).
Jesus didn’t stay in the grave. God raised Him from the dead after three days, and He lives in heaven today. The resurrection was God’s way of showing that He accepted the blood of His Son Jesus, shed on Calvary’s cross for our sins. Ask God to give you the gift of faith to believe that “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son” cleans you from all sin. “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:77In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; (Ephesians 1:7)).
God has given many amazing gifts, such as blood, to us. Find out about one very unique gift from God in The “Human Wind Gauge.”