Danny, your post today reminded me of a commentary written by Pete Garcia over at OMEGA LETTER.  I thought you would enjoy...blessings to you!  

 

• One of my most favorite passages in the Bible is that of the repentant criminal who hung next to Jesus. A guilty criminal, deserving and receiving his just-desserts of the law, hung next to the ONLY innocent man who ever lived. The criminal knew he was guilty, and chastised his fellow criminal, who hung crucified opposite of Christ, for joining the mocking crowds in saying, “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!” The remorseful criminal looked to Jesus and said...

“Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Luke 23:42-43 (NASB)

I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to hang there next to Jesus of Nazareth in sheer agony and open shame before the jeering crowds. Those mocking Christ saw Him as a failure, a fraud, a hoaxer who made grandiose claims of tearing the temple down and rebuilding it in three days. Only a handful of His followers faithfully stayed to watch their Messiah hang naked, bloodied, and humiliated that day. But the repentant thief during this process had a change of heart. At some point, he realized that the Man in the center was not like them because He truly was innocent.

I imagine that in hearing those words from Jesus, the world began to fade away for him as he began to cling to that promise of the One called the “King of the Jews”. I bet he was at peace with his fate upon hearing those words and at peace with that which would immediately transpire upon the closing moments of his life. Those of us who have placed our faith in Christ are the repentant criminals hanging next to Christ, when we realize our own inability to save ourselves. Our soul cries out to GOD “Remember me!” and we, as that repentant criminal must have heard, those same comforting words from Our Lord...that of personal and eternal redemption. Anyone who has placed their faith in Jesus Christ has heard them. So death no longer becomes the end but rather, as the Apostle Paul states, a new glorious beginning...because ‘to be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord’ (2 Cor 5:8).

In our tri-natured state of being (Body/Soul/Spirit) we are reconciled to God instantly and we become at peace with Him, no longer subjects of God’s wrath, but of God’s infinite love. We may not be able to put our fingers on it exactly, but the reality of it makes our spirit at peace with God, as He deposits the Holy Spirit into us as a guarantee of redemption.

The power of Christianity is tied to the Gospel, whose message is of the victory wrought at the Cross of Calvary. It is the pivotal point in history where Jesus, as our Kinsman Redeemer redeemed the repentant man from eternal damnation in hell. Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection is central to the sole reason we can have hope in this world, and with great expectancy, the world to come. Without the Cross-, our hope can only be tied to the things we leave behind. With the Cross, our hope is not tied to our own vain existence, but in what we expect to come once we cross from life into death through Jesus Christ.

http://www.omegaletter.com/articles/articles.asp?ArticleID=7547