It Is Finished.

It is currently 4:00 a.m. April 3rd, 2021 meaning it is technically Easter Sunday. I don’t quite know why I am wide awake at this hour. It could be my poor decision to have caffeine at 10 pm or my nocturnal instincts taking over once again. I have been laying in bed trying to get some sleep before tomorrow morning’s church service, but it has proven to be hopeless, so I figured it was a perfect time for a blog post.

I started to track my feelings about a year ago; this means instead of suppressing and ignoring negative emotion, I try to face it, accept it and try to get to the root of it to move on. For me, this is done by pinpointing my current emotion, assessing what it is making me feel, and then backtracking to what is causing it. By becoming aware of my mental state and holding things captive before Satan uses them against me, I can understand the root of my sin on a deeper level. 

The last few weeks I have tracked this about 100 times:

I have been feeling unworthy, which is making me emotionally drained and spiritually heavy. 

The idea of being unworthy of something has never been one of my struggles but I felt that recently it has been gnawing at me. Intrusive thoughts began to fog my consciousness regularly. 

Why have I been chosen to go on this amazing journey when I am full of sin? Why did he pick me who has done so many wrong things? I am not a good enough example for my unbelieving and believing peers. I mess up too much to be worthy of God’s grace. My sin has made me too broken to help put others back together. 

Why am I (someone who usually struggles more with pride than an inferiority mindset) having these lies whispered to me, and more importantly, why am I letting these whispers turn into screams? Why am I, someone who challenges everything, believing it? I realized that the Lord has shown himself to me so much in the last few months that I am physically becoming more repulsed with my flesh. Becoming more like Jesus means becoming less of yourself. This reality had caused me to resent myself in a way I was not used to. 

Now I find myself in a state of thankfulness, in wonder of God’s love for me when I am not deserving of it. I am not feeling worthlessness, but awe that He sees purpose beyond my flesh, and who am I to disagree with my creator? Thinking about Easter and Jesus’s sacrifice for me this week is helping me to realize that the deed is done! All of my past wrongdoings and inevitable future ones have already been paid for. 

I heard an amazing analogy on Good Friday. Imagine that you are in court, it is judgment day, and God is sitting in the judge’s chair. His glory is so bright you can’t even see his face. Satan is the prosecutor and stands up, listing every bad thing that you have ever done, down to the things you never knew were seen. The very things you wanted to take to the grave. He goes on for hours naming every minor to major mess up. Your lawyer is none other than Jesus; He says no objection, listening to the lengthy amount of evil you have done, all while rubbings His hands together. When Satan is done presenting the evidence against you, God asks if Jesus has anything to say. Jesus holds up His hands revealing His nail-torn scars. He says  “It is Finished” (John 19:30), and when God looks down at you He sees His son. Jesus has already taken my sentence so that I can live in the freedom he died for.

The Lord who used prostitutes and murderers in beautiful ways can certainly use me and can certainly use you. This weekend is a reminder that we are not our worst mistake, nor our greatest accomplishment. The only defining thing about us is our identity in Christ and the union that is made between sinner and savior by Him taking on the punishment we deserve. I am valuable because God says I am. Jesus saw me and did not see the sin, the brokenness, or the bruises, but saw a child of God created in His image. That is why I say with such Joy today, He is risen, risen indeed. 

Easter Sunday has taught me that this is not a matter of cost, but consequences. If the death and resurrection are a mere story, we lose nothing. If the death and resurrection is historically accurate then to ignore that results in the loss of everything. If the death and resurrection are historically accurate then to accept it is to gain everything. The fact that the lives of those who accept this reality of the bond between savior and sinner are changed is evidence of the existence of something greater: because humans crave something this earth cannot provide. This is not a matter of rationality but relationship. Once you accept this, the very two become intertwined.

Happy Easter!