Saturday, October 3, 2015

Day 3: "Forever"

I knew the first time I heard the song "Forever" by Kari Jobe, I knew it was important. The lyrics go through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I've been in church since I was born, and I became a Christian when I was 6 years old. Because I've spent so much time in church and around other Christians, it's not hard to become numb to what God has done for us. I usually see the significance of how He has been faithful to me personally, but I sometimes overlook the things He has done for us all--like sending His Son to Earth to walk among us and then take our punishment and defeat death and Satan once and for all.

When I actually stop and think about the magnitude of what it means that Jesus took my sins upon Himself, it blows my mind. He not only took on my sins, but He took the sins of every single person, alive or dead or not here yet, upon Himself. Jesus is the only human to have ever lived a sinless life--even though He faced temptation just like we do. He was completely perfect and blameless and then He took on our sins. He willingly picked up our shame, our guilt, our brokenness. He absolutely did not have to, but He chose to do it. He submitted Himself to the Will of His Father and TOOK our punishment. A man who did nothing wrong was punished and put to death because of my lies, my pride, my idolatry. Every sin I have ever committed or will ever commit was placed on Him on that day and then He died because of those sins so I wouldn't have to. That blows. my. mind! It's huge! I pray that every person would experience the overwhelming joy and peace that comes from having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that because I'm a Christian I don't have problems and I don't mess up. I do have lots of problems and I mess up all the time. BUT because of Jesus and His love for me, I can trust God to have my good and His glory in mind when things happen in my life. I can look for God in every situation regardless of how good or happy it may seem from the outside. I am not very good at trusting God and I like to try and take things into my own hands too much, but God already knew before I was even conceived that this is what I would struggle with. My daily sins have already been paid for, and I can try to live and love more like Jesus every day of my life. I can try to be obedient to the things God says because of His love and not because I'm just following rules. I can try to tell others about His love and His mercy and His grace through my words and actions each day. I can do all of this while resting in the fact that God and already defeated my real enemy. I may feel like different people are the enemy at times, but the REAL enemy is Satan and he has been defeated! I can rest in that and trust God with the circumstances of my life.

If you've never heard "Forever", I encourage you to listen to it. Learn the words. When you sing them, think about what it really means and the impact Jesus made when He died and rose again. I pray that those of you who don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ would decide to trust Him with your life because His plan and His ways are so much better than anything we can ever come up with on our own. I promise He is worth it.


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