Imagine you are on vacation and while you are gone a bill comes due. Your neighbor comes over and sees your bill and decides to pay it for you. When you get home and realize what has happened how should you react?
That probably depends on how big the bill was, right?
If your neighbor paid a couple dollars you might say “Thanks, bud!” and shake his hand. However, if they paid off a debt you could never have paid yourself, you might drop to your knees and kiss their feet. You might even weep.
This is the Gospel of Jesus. That you had a debt so deep you could never ever pay it back yourself. You needed someone to pay it for you and he did. On the cross he even said, “It is finished!”
Isaiah 53, speaking of the Messiah, says:
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
There was a debt of sin weighing over all of humanity (you, me, that guy next to you) and Jesus took it upon himself and paid it down forever because he loves you.
Why would he do that?
Hebrews 12:1 and 2 say:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
What a miracle!