Category: Thoughts and Meditations

“And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’” – Mark 15:37-39

Today is Good Friday. On this day, we remember the terrible suffering and death of Jesus, the Son of God, on the cross. There on the cross, Jesus suffered not only physically but spiritually. As He was nailed there, bleeding and gasping for breath, Jesus carried all our sins upon Himself. As His strength faded under darkened skies, Jesus personally suffered all of God’s righteous wrath for those sins.

However, with His death, we already see the promise of our hope! As Jesus died, the enormous heavy curtain that separated the Most Holy Place in the Temple from the Holy Place suddenly ripped in two. This curtain separated all of us from God’s holy presence. With Christ’s death, there was no longer a heavy curtain of separation. With Christ’s death, the presence of God can be experienced not just by a High Priest once a year, but by everyone who believes in Jesus every day.

When the Son of God died on Good Friday, He made it possible for everyone who believes in Him to be reconciled to God. Because of the cross, we can enjoy God as our Father and our friend. Because of the cross, we can enjoy eternal life from the moment we believe and for the rest of eternity.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” – 2 Corinthians 3:17

Today is Maundy Thursday, the somber day within Holy Week in which we remember the events of that dark night when Jesus ate His final Passover meal with His disciples, predicted they would abandon Him and pretend they didn’t know Him, prayed in deep distress in the Garden of Gethsemane, and was betrayed by one of His own. This is a dark day, brightened only by our knowledge of why Jesus went through all that – to set us free!

As Jesus explained at the Last Supper, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” Jesus went through the ordeal of the Garden and the cross to establish a new covenant between Holy God and sinful mankind. This new covenant wasn’t based on laws, rules, and heavy discipline. This was a covenant of grace, by which Jesus suffered and we enjoy the benefits, being set free. When we believe and make Jesus Lord of our life, the Spirit of God enters us and we’re set free.

In Christ, we’re set free from guilt. We’re set free from shame. We’re set free from the lasting power of death. We’re set free from loneliness and isolation from God. We’re set free from condemnation. We’re set free from having to make ourselves right, good, or acceptable. Christ makes us right, good, and acceptable to God. In Christ, we’re free to follow God and be transformed into the character of Jesus. We’re free to love and serve the Lord with joy rather than guilt and fear.

Our forgiveness is given as a gift of grace, not something we earn. God’s love for us is given as a gift of grace, not something we earn. God’s Spirit is given as a gift of grace, not something we earn. In this there is true freedom!

“O you who love the Lord, hate evil!
He preserves the lives of his saints;
he delivers them from the hand of the wicked.”
– Psalm 97:10

Here in this Holy Week leading up to Easter, we remember the work Christ did on our behalf to save us from our sins. As the end of His earthly ministry approached, Jesus prepared to take all our sins upon Himself, to bear God’s righteous wrath on the cross, and to die as a sacrifice to pay the penalty for sinful rebellion against God’s authority. Ultimately, Jesus died and He rose from the dead on Easter, victorious over the power of evil, sin, and death.

As we reflect on Christ’s terrible sacrifice and glorious victory, one necessary response for those who love the Lord is to truly hate evil as the psalmist writes here. Christians should never be indulging sin in our own lives. We shouldn’t be ignoring sin in ourselves or in other believers. We shouldn’t be excusing or trivializing sin that we think doesn’t hurt anyone or isn’t a big deal. We shouldn’t be celebrating sin in our culture.

All sin is rebellion against God. All sin separates us from our Holy Creator. All sin is evil and destructive. We must hate evil in our hearts, in the hearts of our brothers and sisters in Christ, and in the world. We must commit to living a life in Spirit-empowered pursuit of holiness like Jesus. We must commit to encourage other Christians to pursue holiness. We must commit to working against the evil we see in the world, in the name of Jesus! O you who love the Lord, hate evil!

“For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.” – 2 Corinthians 1:20

All of God’s promises are utterly reliable because they all find their yes in Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment and guarantee of all the good that God has ever promised. Should you ever begin to doubt God’s will, plan, goodness, or ability to keep His promises to you, look to the cross! At the cross God gave His beloved Son, Jesus, to suffer and die in agony so that His every promise could be fulfilled.

The promises of Scripture are rock-solid and completely certain. They may not be fulfilled on your preferred timeline, but every promise of God is Yes in Christ. God is faithful and He keeps His word. The promises of God may not be fulfilled in the way you expected or would prefer, but every promise of God is Yes in Christ. A better yes. A wiser yes than you could ever imagine.

This is why, in good times and bad, every follower of Christ can lift our prayers, praise, and worship to God. Through Christ we can utter our Amen for God’s glory, because every one of God’s promises will prove true in His perfect time and His perfect way.

“For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” – 2 Corinthians 1:8-9

Don’t think you’ll make it through life easier than the Apostle Paul! God will absolutely let you go through things much harder than you’re capable of handling. God will permit you to be tested and burdened beyond your ability so that you despair as Paul despaired. The whole of 2 Corinthians testifies to this reality. Whether you’re serving the Lord diligently or mostly serving yourself, God will let you be pushed so far past your strength, abilities, and endurance that you’ll despair of life itself.

Why would a good God let that happen? So you’ll learn to rely on Him which is infinitely better! So you’ll tap into the unlimited resurrection power of the Holy Spirit Who lives in you if you believe in Jesus. So that through Christ you’ll learn to do vastly more than you could ever possibly accomplish in your own strength. So that through meeting God in the fire you’re able to offer the comfort of God to others going through fiery seasons of life.

Paul was a man of enormous talents, energy, and zeal for God. Yet he had to learn to let go of all that and rely on God’s strength and suffering was his classroom. It was that reliance on God’s strength that made Paul the transformative figure that he is for the world. That same strength is available to every follower of Jesus but we must get over doing it ourselves. We must get past gritting our teeth and grinding it out in our strength. We must cry out and acknowledge our weakness, yielding everything to God. Then we’ll be raised from that point of death to ourselves to a powerful life empowered by God!