In Jones county, Mississippi, there is a little town called Soso. There are different stories regarding how the town got its name. One says that an early settler of the area used to always reply, “So-so” whenever someone asked him how he was doing. Another says that when the railroad was being built through the area, a small group went ahead to scout out a place where the workers could set up base camp. When the group returned and were asked if they had found a spot, they answered, “We found a place. It has some water, but not enough. It has some shelter, but not what we’d expect. The place we found is just so-so.”

Christian, aren’t you glad that Jesus put in infinitely more than just a “so-so” effort in paying the sin debt that you owed to holy God? Isaiah chapter 53 is probably the Bible’s most graphic passage on what our salvation cost Jesus. Instead of me simply conveying the verses verbatim, I hope you won’t mind if I mix and mingle the many phrases from the verses to create a descriptive paragraph. As you read the paragraph, please read slowly and take time to let the words deeply resonate with you.

He had no form, comeliness, or beauty that we should desire Him, and we hid our faces from Him and did not esteem Him. He was despised, rejected, acquainted with grief, and smitten by God. He was stricken, afflicted, wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities. He was acquainted with grief, oppressed, led as a lamb to the slaughter, and cut off from the land of the living. Like a sheep before its shearers is silent, He was a man of sorrows who opened not His mouth when He was taken from prison. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all, and He was stricken for the transgression of the Lord’s people. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him and put Him to grief, and He was numbered with the transgressors. His soul was poured out unto death and made an offering for sin. He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, and the chastisement for our peace was upon Him. By His stripes we are healed. He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth, but they made His grave with the wicked and the rich at His death.

Tell me, does that description sound like Jesus did a so-so job in dying for our sins? Of course it doesn’t. Why then do we tend to do such a so-so job of serving Him? As the old hymn says, “Jesus paid it ALL, ALL to Him I owe.” We should let the combination of those two uses of “ALL” be a challenge to us to not only believe in Jesus as our Savior, but also give Him the absolute best each of us has to offer. You see, when it comes to knowing Him as Savior and living for Him as Lord, “so-so” just won’t do. And while we can never match the effort that He expended for us, I trust you will agree that we can do a better job of striving to reach that goal than we are right now.