This Changes Everything
If you've had a rough year (or life), take heart.
Because tomorrow isn't just any Friday.
It's guaranteed...
Good.
Tomorrow marks the most beguiling/ bewildering/ bewitching day in all of human history. That single, life-changing, earth-shaking Friday was both celestial and cataclysmic.
Heavenly and horrifying.
Divine yet deadly.
(It was unthinkably brutal... bloody... barbaric, really.)
And yet we call it Good.
Why?
Because it harkens back, looks forward, and wraps up in the present all the best things in life:
Debts cancelled.
Evil overcome.
Mercy sprinkled.
Injustice overturned.
Sins forgiven. (Yes, even the ugliest and worst.)
Grace gifted.
Death defeated, once and for all... for all who dare to believe...
(That Jesus is who he said he is. And did what he said he would. And will do all he's promised.)
The hero prevails.
The villain slinks back into the shadows.
And every one of us who's desperate to be cherished... knows... now and forever... we are.
The One who embodies love... offered up his body.
The One who loves us to death... died.
The One who breathes life itself... breathed his last. For you and me.
Because love compelled him to.
Jesus.
Loves.
You.
It's not a fearful, flimsy love. It's fierce, firm, unflinching.
It's forever.
It's the stuff of dreams-come-true and happily-ever-after... but it is not a fairy tale.
Real love isn't the story arc of a two-hour rom-com. It sticks around a whole lot longer. (And it's far more practical, capable, durable, valuable than anything Hollywood could dream up.)
Real love looks closely, tenderly. And it overlooks.
It listens carefully and hears - between, beneath, beyond - what's spoken out loud.
Real love has grit, strength, steely resolve.
And it (eventually, always) requires sacrifice.
Selflessness.
It gets its hands dirty... pulls up out of the muck... or sits weeping together in it.
It's the kind of love that's willing to lay it all down.
Even when the beloved is unlovely.
Unworthy.
Ungrateful.
(Like me.)
Now, would anyone dare to die for the sake of a wicked person? We can all understand if someone was willing to die for a truly noble person. But Christ proved God’s passionate love for us by dying in our place while we were still lost and ungodly!
And there is still much more to say of his unfailing love for us! ~ Romans 5:7-9 (TPT)
Real love will bear the worst, believe the best, wait expectantly when everything in sight tells it to abandon hope... and endure beyond the bitter end...
Anticipating a fresh new beginning.
That kind of lay-down-your-life love is a force. It has resurrection power. It breathes life into dead things.
Dreams.
Relationships.
Futures.
Forever afters.
So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture...
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. ~ Romans 8:31-39 (The Message)
The human mind can scarcely comprehend that kind of love.
It's inexplicable.
Unsurpassable.
Flawless.
And... finished.
Yes, friend.
It.
Is.
Finished.
Ready, waiting, yours for the asking.
I know... because I'm the blessed recipient of that kind of crazy love. And I pray that you are - or will be (today?) - too.
We want all sorts of things in life. But what we need isn't something. It's someone. And when we look for him and find him, we gain everything.
Looking for truth? A way through? The meaning of life? Jesus really is...
All that.
He's the one you're looking for. (It's been him all along.)
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. ~ John 14:6 (NLT)
A Father’s love, a Son’s obedience, a sinner’s pardon.
Relief... freedom!... a fresh start for all who ask.
Good Friday changes everything.
And it can change you.
T.G.I.F.
Wendy
P.S. Sunday’s coming. Tomb’s empty. Love wins.
