Good Friday

It's Good Friday.

Today is the day Jesus died for our sins, fulfilling the prophesy in Isaiah that the Messiah would come and be crushed for our sins (you can read it below).

Today is the day. He died for my sins. He died for your sins, no matter what they are. Theft, hate, deceit, murder - all of them. It doesn't matter what you have done in your life - God will forgive it all if you just ask Him to.

I'm not saying this as a self-righteous person. I fall in line with every other person as a sinner. I have coveted other people's property, I have lied, I have deceived others. I am no better than anyone else, nor would I want to be. I need the blood of Christ to wash me anew on a daily basis. I need his loving arms to envelop me and to pull me out of the pit on a continual basis. Daily. Sometimes hourly.

In our culture, Good Friday doesn't get the attention I think it deserves. We celebrate Easter - the resurrection of the Lord and the coming of the Holy Spirit... but today.

Today is the day he died for us. Today is the day he bent down lower than the low and took my sin from me. He chose to take my sin from me and wash me clean. I am crying typing this out because I don't deserve it. God knows I don't deserve it. But I can just picture Christ at my side, patting my back and saying, "It's okay, Allison. I want to do this for you. Because I love you." Oh, how He loves us. All of us.

1 John 4:9-10 (New Living Translation)

 ⁹ God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. ¹⁰ This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

Isaiah 53

 ¹ Who has believed our message?
      To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
 ² My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,
      like a root in dry ground.
   There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
      nothing to attract us to him.
 ³ He was despised and rejected—
      a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
   We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
      He was despised, and we did not care.
 ⁴ Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
      it was our sorrows^[a] that weighed him down.
   And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
      a punishment for his own sins!
 ⁵ But he was pierced for our rebellion,
      crushed for our sins.
   He was beaten so we could be whole.
      He was whipped so we could be healed.
 ⁶ All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
      We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
   Yet the Lord laid on him
      the sins of us all.
 ⁷ He was oppressed and treated harshly,
      yet he never said a word.
   He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
      And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
      he did not open his mouth.
 ⁸ Unjustly condemned,
      he was led away.^[b]
   No one cared that he died without descendants,
      that his life was cut short in midstream.^[c]
   But he was struck down
      for the rebellion of my people.
 ⁹ He had done no wrong
      and had never deceived anyone.
   But he was buried like a criminal;
      he was put in a rich man’s grave.
 ¹⁰ But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him
      and cause him grief.
   Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
      he will have many descendants.
   He will enjoy a long life,
      and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands.
 ¹¹ When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
      he will be satisfied.
   And because of his experience,
      my righteous servant will make it possible
   for many to be counted righteous,
      for he will bear all their sins.
 ¹² I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier,
      because he exposed himself to death.
   He was counted among the rebels.
      He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.