Category Archives: General

Yesterday we cried, “He is risen!” Today is the day after. So what, if anything, has changed for us? Everything- if we understand the gospel. The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ left behind an empty tomb and that is the absolute proof that the payment Jesus made on that cross on our behalf was accepted in full. God counted every one of our sins, past, present and to come but not against us. He counted them against the One who knew no sin, His beloved Son, our beloved Savior. We are now free to live the life we could not live because He paid the debt we could not pay. This is known in Christian circles as the Great Exchange – our debt for His payment – our sin for His righteousness – our forgiveness for His condemnation – our crown of glory for His crown of thorns. All who are in Christ by faith do not stand before God with a clean slate, but rather, a slate filled with the righteousness of Christ. Theologically this is known as justification. More simply put, it means “just-as-if-I-had-never-sinned.”

Only when this sinks deep down into our bones can we begin to live like sons rather than slaves. Only when this truth moves past instructing our minds to enflaming our hearts can we grow into the person God is calling us to be. And what kind of person is that? A God-centered, gospel-saturated, grace-driven Christian who is making an eternal difference in this world by being different from this world. Don’t mistake this description for one who is perfect or sinless. The apostle Paul put it this way, “None is righteous, no, not one…” (Romans 3:10). Only One can claim that on this side of the grave and said it Himself, “I always do the things that are pleasing to him” (John 8:29).

We do everything imperfectly. We stain everything with our sin. That is why it is only the gospel that keeps us going because only the gospel tells us we are accepted by God because of what Christ has done for us. That’s right. Accepted by God, in spite of our sin stained lives, because Jesus paid for every one of our sins and God only sees us clothed in the righteousness of Christ. What an awesome freedom to know at the deepest level regarding our place in the family of faith…not our performance, but His perfection. It is living out the truth of Galatians 2:20 “The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

So back to my opening question, “What if anything has changed for us the day after we celebrate the empty tomb?” If we continue looking to ourselves for our salvation (eternal life)…nothing has changed. If we continue looking to ourselves for our sanctification (everyday life)…nothing has changed. But if we look for both outside of ourselves to the finished work of Christ, understanding that we stand before a Holy, Just and Perfect God clothed in the Holy, Just, and Perfect righteousness of Christ, and we do it every day, then everything has changed for us. Pain is not so painful. Fear is not so fearful. Sorrow is not so sorrowful. Disappointment is not so disappointing. And challenges are not so challenging. Everything has changed for us because Jesus has secured all the grace we will ever need to run the race set before us. NEVER FORGET THAT…AMEN!

Welcome to our inaugural BLOG. Thank you for taking the time to visit with me. I pray that the words you read will, by God’s grace, prove profitable to you.

LOVED TO DEATH
For Christians all over the world, today is known as Good Friday…the day Jesus Christ went willingly to the cross and nailed our sins…all our sins…to that dirty tree. Yet to fully be able to receive and respond to the “good” part of Friday, we have to understand the bad. And what is the bad? You and me! That’s right. We are the bad part of Good Friday. It was because of our sin, our iniquities, our transgressions that our Lord and Savior paid our price on what should have been our cross. The prophet Isaiah writes, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned–every one–to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:4-6).

The bad news on Good Friday is that we are responsible for the death of our Lord. We betrayed him. We deserted him. We crowned him with thorns. We drove in those nine inch nails. All we, like deaf, dumb and blind sheep willingly went astray from the only real beauty this fallen world has ever seen…Jesus. And what was the response of our Lord to such sinful and selfish treatment? Love. Unconditional, sacrificial, radical love. So radical was his love for us, he loved us to death! Never think for a moment that those nine inch nails kept our Lord hanging up on that cross. It was love that kept him there.

When you think about it for just a moment, the good news of the gospel simply doesn’t make sense without the bad news. The only reason we need a Savior is because we are sinners who are incapable of saving ourselves. It took the perfect righteousness of Christ; his sinless life, his sacrifical death and his resurrection from the grave, to satisfy the just judgment of God the Father. When Jesus cried out on the cross, “It is finished!” he was making it clear that the payment for sin was paid in full. Nothing we do that is”good” can add to the finished work of Jesus on the cross and nothing we do that is “bad” can take away from it. Because Jesus paid the full price for all of our sins…past, present and to come…God does not come after us when we sin looking to exact his pound of flesh. God himself would be denying his own Son and what he did for us on that cross if he came after us to pay for sins that were already paid for in full. When that sinks down into the marrow of our bones, we can begin to live the life God has called us to with both freedom and faithfulness to the One who saved us. We no longer have to feel guilty about our past or fearful about our future, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). No matter what you have done or will ever do, you are never beyond the reach of his radical love and renewing grace. This is indeed good news for every battle-weary believer like myself.

Accepted. Adopted. Assured. Everything we need we have in Jesus. As my friend and pastor Tullian often reminds us, “Jesus plus nothing equals everything. Everything minus Jesus equals nothing.” So the two questions that need to be asked and answered on this Good Friday is this, “Do you know yourself as a great sinner in need of this Great Savior?” “And have you confessed your sins to this Jesus and received him by faith as both your Savior and Lord? If this is true for you, then today is indeed Good Friday. Today is a day of victory and celebration. If you have not, cry out to Jesus. His love is far too radical to let a sincere cry go unanswered. NEVER FORGET THAT…AMEN!

Thanks for visiting this blog. 

I will begin posting on April 1st…no fooling!

Lord willing, posts will appear weekly on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

See you soon!