Chiang Mai, Thailand...throughout Asia and around the globe Christians everywhere are celebrating Good Friday. When we think about this Friday as opposed to others in the calendar, it really is day for celebration. Certainly what the Jewish and Roman authorities did to Jesus wasn't good. However the result of Christ's death produced something quite amazing and good.
For us the day began reminding ourselves of the words of John the Baptist found in John 1:29. This is the place recorded in the Scriptures where John sees Jesus coming towards him at the beginning of Christ's ministry and says to the crowd gathered, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
John's declaration hinges all the stories in the Old Testament, related to animals being sacrificed covering the sins of mankind, to "The Story" in the New Testament. Jesus is that Story, the perfect lamb of God who in his death does exactly what Romans 6:10 talks about. "The death he (Jesus) died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God." NIV.
Hebrews 10 reminds us what animal sacrifices could not do and what Christ's death did when it says:
10:1: The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming-not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.
The sacrifices of the Law could never "make perfect those who draw near."
10:2: Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins.
Those sacrifices could not completely cleanse the worshipers and take away their consciousness of sins.
10:3: But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins.
Those sacrifices provided a yearly reminder of sins.
10:4: It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Those sacrifices could not take away sins.
10:10: And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
By God's will through the cross, "we have been sanctified" once for all.
10:12: But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,
Christ "offered one sacrifice for sins for all time."
10:14: For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
"By one offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified."
10:17: "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more."
God promises to remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.
10:18: And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.
"Where there is forgiveness...there is no longer any offering for sin."
This is what makes Good Friday GOOD: in Christ we receive a complete, final, once and for all pardon for all of our sins, past, present, and future! God's son, Jesus Christ, his perfect Lamb, bore the awful penalty we deserved to pay and instead he pardoned us from all of our sins. Good Friday is an important part of The Story which culminates in Christ's burial and resurrection. Truly we have Good News to share with the world.
Please pray for the people in Asia, lands filled with people who are both righteous and unrighteous - needing to be brought to God. Please pray these words from 1Peter 3:18 for the people of Asia:
"For Christ died for sins once for all (the people of Asia), the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring (them) you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit." Lord this Passover make alive by your Spirit, hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands of people living in Asia - opening their eyes to the perfect lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world to those who believe.
He is risen,
Don and Kathy
Your Ms in Asia
No comments:
Post a Comment