I haven’t blogged in ages. I miss it. Even if no one reads my blogs, they are helpful to me when I write them. Blogging is just a hobby, it is not mandatory. However, the reason I have not blogged is the same reason that is causing me to have to repent before my Savior this morning. I’ll explain.
Today is Good Friday. I’m thankful that it’s a paid holiday for me. Even when I have had to take a vacation day, I have always set aside Good Friday to have a date with my Savior and Friend. I spend the morning and early afternoon in personal time with Jesus before heading to church late afternoon. Like most Christians, I tend to reflect a little deeper on Good Friday. I remember the events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus. I think about His anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane. I think about the crown of thorns, the beatings, the painful, slow carrying of that cross down the Via De La Rosa to Calvary where nails were pounded through His hands and feet. Worse than all that physical pain was the mockery and piercing comments of the crowd. His closest friends have scattered. The crowd that cried “Hosanna” just one week prior, now shouted “crucify Him”. The mocking comments of “save yourself” and “ha – King of the Jews” had to hurt Him more than any nail or thorn ever could.
This reflection causes tears to stream down my face, but tears are inadequate and words fall short as I recall the reason all of this took place. Because of me. Period. My sin nailed Him to that cross. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. It was my cross, my death and Jesus decided that He would rather it be Him than me. In the most unfair exchange ever, Jesus took my sin and gave me His righteousness.
Two things happened as a result of that exchange. Unfortunately, many folks are only aware or accepting of the first. The first thing that resulted from this exchange was salvation. Sin had separated us from God and with our sin-stained lives, we could not be with God – we were doomed to spend eternity in hell – permanently separated from God. Jesus’s blood purchased our salvation. Those who accept His free gift have their eternity secured. Our ticket into heaven has been purchased. But that is just the beginning, it does not stop there.
When I was about 8 years old, I went with a neighbor to her church. I remember the church singing a hymn and saying “when we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be.” I was only 8 years old but even then I thought to myself “you have to wait until you get to heaven??? Who wants to wait that long!”
It wasn’t until I was 14 that I would learn the second result of Jesus’s death on the cross. See, I didn’t have to wait until heaven. Jesus died my death so that I could enjoy relationship with the Father – right now, on earth.
Matthew 27:51 tells us that when Jesus died, the temple veil was torn in two from top to bottom. What does that mean? In the temple, the veil separated the Holy of Holies, the place of God’s presence from the rest of the temple. Only the High Priest could access God’s presence. This was a symbol of intimacy with God. The common folk never left the outer court. When Jesus died and that veil was torn – He made a way for every day common folk to have an intimate, personal relationship with God – right now.
When I first learned this in my teenage years, I could not describe the wonder and the joy I felt. Why would the Creator of everything want a relationship with me? Further, why would Jesus suffer such a horrible death to give me the gift of that relationship? I was so wonderstruck that I pursued that relationship with every ounce of effort I had. I could not get enough. I couldn’t spend enough time in the Word, in worship, in prayer, in church. I wanted more and more.
It is this recollection that causes me to spend time repenting this morning. As I recall what a costly price was paid for me to have that relationship, I realize that I have somehow lost the wonder. The time with Jesus that I pursued so passionately has become something I do if and when life allows – such as a day off like today. Oh, every once in a while I wake up in time to spend a few moments with Him in the morning and about a month ago I joined the ladies Bible study. But the pursuit is just not there. What happened?
My sin is not one of action, it is one of attitude and mindset. I don’t mean to put God on the back burner. Somehow, I have allowed life to get so big. I am consumed with work, school, household management, and friendships – sadly, in that order. None of these things are bad and they are necessary. I can’t call off work to spend time reading the Bible. Somehow, though, I have allowed these things to take the majority of my mental and emotional energy. I am daily consumed with thoughts about my to-do list. When I do have an evening or a few hours to myself, I am usually exhausted (more mentally than physically) and I spend my time vegged out on the couch watching television or playing internet games (a mindless activity). Twenty years ago, I had a job. I had relationships. I had responsibilities. However, they did not consume me. They certainly did not take my focus off of Jesus.
Of the things that I spend my time on, only my relationships have any eternal value whatsoever. The other things won’t matter at the end of my earthly life so why do they get so much of my mental energy? When I finally get to leave this earth and see Jesus face to face, neither He nor I will be thinking about cost basis! He won’t ask me how the transition of portfolio accounting software went. We won’t care whether or not I passed the CPA exam. All that will matter then is my relationship with Him and how I lived my life here on earth. Jesus cares about how well I work and He wants me to do everything I do with excellence, but He never intended for it to consume me.
My heart hurts thinking about what I have done. A precious, priceless gift of a relationship with God and through my actions I have said that this crazy, temporal life takes a front seat in my mind. What hurts even more is that I know I have blogged a similar thing before. This isn’t new. I catch myself, I try harder, and I fall back into this trap time and time again. Another Romans 7.
Here comes the Good News. Grace. I don’t mean to take my sin lightly and slap a bandage of grace on it, but I reach for that grace and grab it like a life preserver, not relaxing on it like a lounge raft. That same amazing grace that took my sin and nailed it to a cross, covers me when my spiritual walk becomes a crawl. Somehow, this amazing Savior still wants to have relationship with me even after I put Him on the back burner. That Old Rugged Cross paid for this sin of mine – my current faulty mindset – and beckons me once again to the foot of Calvary. And as I kneel there and acknowledge that my need for a Savior is just as great as it was on July 30, 1988 when I first accepted Jesus, I ask for His help to break this cycle.
In my ladies Bible study, we learned that the Holy Spirit’s job is to change us from the inside out. We can’t try to change our actions and hope that our actions will change our heart. The Holy Spirit changes our heart and then our actions change.
So today, I seek the Holy Spirit’s help to renew my mind, to help me to magnify the Lord in my thoughts so that the things of this earth become strangely dim. I ask Him to rekindle the desire to pursue and deepen our relationship. I pray for grace to keep my priorities straight and to remain focused on Jesus – not just today on Good Friday, not just this Easter weekend, but on Monday when I resume my crazy, hectic schedule and through the month of April when I deal with quarter end and tax time at work and final exams at school. And as I try desperately to maintain the relationships of those closest to me, I ask the Holy Spirit’s help to maintain the most important one I have – the one purchased with blood.
If you are a believer and a friend of mine, would you help me with this? Would you make me accountable? When you see me or communicate electronically, feel free to ask me how my relationship with Jesus is going, before asking me about work or school. Remind me to put more mental energy into eternal things than temporal things. The last thing I want is to type a blog similar to this one on Good Friday, 2017.
But for Grace…..
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