Friday Paid For All Of It

It's dreary, rain is in the forecast and the clouds look burdened with it- nearly ready to overflow with tears. My heart aches for so many friends going through life's trials. If only I could fix them... It's amazing how dark life can seem, how dark a day can seem.

This week, in just a few short days Good Friday will be upon us... for us, it is an especially sad day. A day we lost twins - Faith & Hope sisters and daughters we never had the blessing of meeting. How fitting that the work should feel as bleak in the face of such loss, an unborn child and innocence sacrificing His life to save a world. Not a world of people that were deserved it, not a world of blameless, "good" people, but a world that willingly sent Him to the cross. A world of sinners, lost (and quite happy with it) a world that couldn't see that the answer they had so long sought was right in front of them.

It amazes me how when we want something, we close our ears to the wisdom of others and shut our hearts to the truth before us. We see and feel what we want instead of listening.

We allow our pride to lead us right past the manager and find ourselves holding the nails driven into a cross. We grip our heavy burdens with an iron determination to hold on to the guilt, and the scars refusing to forgive ourselves despite the fact that He has already forgiven us. We claim those sins over and over again despite the fact they've been paid at the cross. We try to pay for them over and over when they've already been paid.

As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12 NIV

Related Article: Friday Isn't The End Of The Story

The pastor at our church likes to say it something like this, God has thrown our sins in the lake and forgotten them hanging a no fishing sign- but we keep going back to that lake and fishing the guilt over the choices out.

Friday paid for all of it, Friday was God's day to remove it all to the lake and hung a giant NO FISHING sign. Friday was the day that carved away anything the could separate you and God, like a giant chisel carving away your past and leaving only the sacrifice. Friday is a day of darkness, but it's also a beginning. Every week we long for Friday- the end of a work week but it is also the  BEGINING of something new.

Good Friday marks the most unjustifiable act in history- and also the biggest act of love. He was God, he didn't have to go through that horror. But He loved you, and He loved me so much He went and he paid the price you and I could never have hoped too so that Sunday could be the happiest day. He paid the price so that the darkness of Friday, could be overshadowed by the light of Sunday.

Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. Psalm 30:5 NIV

On the cross, He said "It is finished" not "I am finished" On Friday he wiped clean our slates, but on Sunday he flipped the page and started a new story. Because the one who died for us walks with us. As much as the world likes to tell us Easter is about chicks and eggs and bunnies, Easter is none of this. Easter is about The Lamb, who loved you so much that he lay down His life to save you. He's God those nails didn't hold Him to those pieces of wood- love did. He bridged a chasm so wide we could never cross, in a way only He could out of love.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 NIV

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