Good the Bad and the Ugly of Friday

As we enter into the Easter weekend we are surrounded by all the wonders that Easter has to offer. We love to indulge in our Easter chocolates, our colorful boiled eggs, stuffed animals, and for some of us a grand meal! I really enjoy all of these parts of Easter, and my daughter is learning that around this time of year there is no short supply of chocolate!

So many of us get caught up in the commercial aspects of this holiday and forget the love story at the core. These few days are about a God who desperately loves His creation. With beauty and love He created with aspects of Himself embedded within. He wanted to have an eternal relationship with them, but also endowed them with free will, allowing his creation to chose to love Him or follow their own path. Selfish and quick to fall to temptation, they left God in their own pursuits.

Leaving the protection of the Creator, they brought upon themselves a great price to pursue their own desires. Death. They would no longer live eternally in body, and their spirit would be judged at death.

From this moment on God made a promise to His people, the Hebrews. If they would be His people, he would be their God. From their descendants a King would free them from all bondage and slavery. Not just the Hebrews would be saved, but the entire race of man.

For thousands of years, God’s promise could be traced as a scarlet thread through history as He zealously protected, guided and watched over his people. Eventually, as God promised the King arrived. Nearly 2000 years ago, God stepped into humanity, with all the frailty of man, born in lowly conditions, and sought for death even in infancy. Living in an impoverished land, occupied by foreigners, and for the Hebrews who rejected Him as the Messiah God dwelt among us for what we call, "Good Friday."

Rejected again, just as He was after creation, now we chose to beat Him, reject Him, deny Him, and crucify Him. However, unknown to us He knew this would all happen and it all fell into his plan of redemption. He willingly became our sacrifice, setting events into motion that would forever change the face of our world. After killing our God, he rose from the dead. He paid a debt that we could not pay, a price we would not for ourselves take upon willingly, He took it all upon Him. All of our rejection of Him He took upon Himself allowing us eternal life with Him. Conquering death, He gave us access to his glory again.

There is nothing that we have done to deserve this. There is nothing we can do to earn it. Is is a gift, but as will all gifts, we must accept it.

The good of this Friday is the final work God did on the cross for us, the Bad is the fact that without Him we are eternally lost, and the Ugly is the truth that we must accept his Sacrifice and choose to follow Him again, completing the circle that was began so long ago.

Are you willing to accept the ugly truth that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no one comes to God but through Jesus?

"that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;" Romans 10:9 (NASB)