Jesus and The Cross

Today is Good Friday, a day that we remember the darkest day in history. It's the day that Jesus, God's one and only Son, died on a cross to save you and me from sin and shame. It's the day that gave us salvation and eternal life. In two days we celebrate Resurrection Sunday and remember when He rose from the dead conquering death and our Enemy once and for all.

One of the most humbling, but such beautiful things about Jesus dying is that He did it all out of a love for you and me. Romans 5:8 says, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” God didn’t owe us anything. We’re the ones who owe God everything, but even with that, Jesus already paid all the debt we owe and ever will owe.

He bore beatings, mockery, unexplainable pain physically, emotionally, mentally, and even spiritually for us. He endured agonizing separation from His Father, so that we could be brought back into a relationship with our God. But He didn't just cover our sin in His blood, He completely erased our sin and now we are seen as holy in God's eyes.

I think about Resurrection Sunday and what a celebration it is, but I find it hard to rejoice about what He had to endure. Maybe we don't celebrate the fact that He went through a gruesome death, but that He rose again. He's alive! We're alive now in Him! We have hope for our future. We have forgiveness freely offered. We have peace knowing that in Jesus we are no longer condemned. (Romans 8:1)

If you're reading this and don't know Jesus yet, He knows you. He loves you and wants to have a relationship with you. Not a relationship where He lets you down and leaves you when you make a mistake. As humans you and I are sinners and we're both going to sin, but Hebrews 13:5b says that He will never leave or forsake us. And when He makes a promise, He always keeps it. If you want to learn how to start a relationship with Jesus, I wrote all about that here. Jesus loves you. You don't have to clean yourself up before you come to Him, because nothing we could do could cleanse us of our sins. Only He can do that. He's waiting, and He won't ever force His way into your life. But He wants to show you just how much He loves you.

I"m praying that we all better understand the depth and weight of God's love for us, this weekend especially, but every day that we walk this earth. It's crazy to think that we will never fully grasp just how great His love is until we reach Heaven; and I wonder if even then, we won't quite comprehend it.

This weekend is a time to remember what Jesus saved us from. To pray and thank God for His goodness to us even when we don't deserve it. But it's also a time of rejoicing. Darkness and evil and sin won't rule the world forever. It can feel like there is no hope as we watch the world get darker and darker. But Jesus is coming back! And until then, the Holy Spirit lives in us and we can shine the light of God's love and grace to the world. Until the whole world hears.