How often have we seen this in our own lives? Defeat has knocked on my door more times than I can even remember. I've lost debate rounds. I've failed to break. I've lost memory of my piece in piano competitions. I've experienced some defeat in every endeavor I've entered, in one way or another. But more importantly, I've been defeated in my spiritual life. I've failed to love well. I've failed to be the hands of Christ. I've failed to pray. I've failed to guard my heart. I've failed to fight sin. I've stood face to face with the Enemy, and allowed him into my heart. I have been conquered by what I have done, and what I have failed to do.
I don't think there is anyone, who truly feels the weight of sin, that doesn't want to be freed from it. I remember a couple months ago, I realized that I was capable of hurting people. I had always been aware of it, but there was something about that realization that made my heart skip a beat. I was capable of breaking someone to pieces. I was capable of tearing people down, even when I didn't realize I was doing it. No one was "safe" from me. I had hurt people, and I could never undo it. I can think of so many of you reading this right now, whom I have hurt, consciously or unconsciously. What scared me the most about that realization was the fact that I had hurt some people intentionally. At times, I had even enjoyed it in some way. I felt so broken... so conquered by what sin had been able to do through me. And in my own strength, there was nothing I could do.
How quickly we forget that we are living on this side of the cross. That we don't have to live in our own strength anymore. That the enabling power of the cross has freed us to live the life that Christ gave us. I think the main reason we forget is that we don't truly stop to think about what it cost to save us... what it meant to take the nails.
Jesus, throughout the gospels, is called the "Lamb of God". While this sounds like a friendly, soft term, the significance runs much more deeply... this man was born to die. His life's purpose was wrapped around the two beams of wood, to which his hands and feet would be nailed. He would have to take the full wrath of God upon Himself. I don't think any of us truly comprehends the fullness of God's wrath... I don't think we ever can. Throughout the Old Testament, we see glimpses of the Father's righteous anger, and the just punishment He has for His people, but even then, we can't see the complete picture. Jesus Christ was the only man to ever walk the earth, who truly understood the wrath of God, and the horror of what it meant, to whomever it was poured out upon. And He took the full blow upon Himself, for us. I can never begin to comprehend the horror of the cross, but Isaiah 52-53 gives a glimpse of what would happen to the suffering Messiah. "His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness." (Is. 52:14b)
And yet the physical suffering was incomparable to the spiritual agony He endured. It is astonishing, to look at the first lines of Psalm 22, and realize it is God's own son crying out: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" This is love, that the Father would turn His back on His son, so that He would never have to turn His back on us. This is love, that Jesus Christ would lay down His life for us.
The cross was not just for the forgiveness of sin. Its power extended to the very fabric of our lives, that if we, as Paul writes in Romans 6, would enter into Christ's death and be resurrected with Him, we would experience new life, and the enabling power to live it. Through the cross, we are enabled to live in the light of Jesus. We are enabled to have victory over sin, for no longer are we slaves to sin, but sons of righteousness. We are no longer bound by what once held us. We are no longer conquered by the Enemy. We are no longer in a state of defeat. We no longer are forced to fall back into those patterns of sin and destruction. We have been bought with the precious blood of Jesus, and we have the supernatural ability to walk in freedom, through Christ.
Every moment we continue to live under the power of defeat, we are saying no to the sacrifice God made. Every day we continue to exist as slaves of sin, we are refusing the enabling power that has been given to us, and cheapening the cross. This final week of Lent, let it not be said of us that we refused the full measure of the work of the cross. On this side of the cross, the Holy Spirit has made our hearts His temple. We are stewards of the mysteries of God. We are the tabernacle, and the veil is torn; we have open access to the throne room of heaven.
We have been enabled to live beyond.
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Worship Song:
"True Love"
by Phil Wickham
"True Love"
by Phil Wickham
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