What's the Deal?

This is something I wrote out last month. It's a little late, but it's what was going on none-the-less. :)

With Easter going on, there were a lot of thoughts going through my mind.  Especially because we had a Girls Journey in and I was really praying that they would have an Easter that they'd never forget.

As thoughts were crashing and swirling through my mind I hit on one and stopped, saddened and grieved. It was the thought of all the Easters past that had meant almost nothing to me. Easters where I just sat and listened to the recounting of a story that I'd known forever.  It's funny, it was on an Easter Sunday that I gave myself to Jesus, but so often after that when His sacrifice came up in song or sermon, it was just a sad thing that had happened a long time ago but hearing it and thinking about it  didn't stir my heart at all. The people around me who were freaking out about it all were just really strange.  

But as the years have passed, something has radically changed. That thing is my faith in the love of my God and my Saviour.

Before, the Easter story was that of a distant God who could do anything, and because He was really judgmental, He had to do something to make us tolerable enough to be around, so He sent His Son, who was perfect and could handle it, to die for us; and as a result we can go to heaven. But, we'd still better do everything right or we are in big trouble.

Those beliefs didn't make for a very full or joyful Christian walk.  But as God has taken the time to break down my wall of doubt and unbelief in His unconditional love, the cross has become one of the most heartrending and beautiful things in my life.

What I was thinking about this past Easter, was what the cross of my Lord has actually given me.  

For so long I lived, saved, but totally defeated by sin and discouragement. I knew I wouldn't have to go to hell, I knew that I would go to heaven, but life here was a joke!

But there has been a crazy revelation that God has been showing me little by little in the past few years, and this Easter I was really pretty much freaking out about it.

So, when I had the chance to spend some time with the girls who were going on the Journey, there was one thing I wanted them to see; the deal God made when He let Christ die!

He totally outwitted the devil, He CRUSHED him with Christ's victory over death!!!  Being such a victor, God had won the right to choose the terms of surrender.  

So what are they?  Well, according to how most of us Christians live they must have been along these lines:  "Satan, I have conquered and vanquished you, and I have overcome your only weapon which is death! My power is undeniable, my victory is complete and unquestionable! So, here are the terms of surrender that I demand!  You will not have anyone who accepts what My Son has done! They will be mine for eternity! Forever and ever, and EVER they will dwell with me and you will NOT be able to TOUCH them! 

But............you may still keep them bound here on earth.  They may still remain under your whip and continue to be a slave to sin and discouragement. They may live in fear, and doubt, uncertain of my love, and unsure of my will.  You may torment them with lies, and lead them into misery, guilt and condemnation, they may still live in sin, and they can strive to do everything right without the strength to actually accomplish it, and you may use that to make them despair. BUT... I get them in the end! "

Sigh.... I lived that way for SO long.  But the thought, that God would win such a victory, at SUCH a cost, and then settle with those kind of terms, it's awful, it's horrible, and it doesn't make any sense!

God did not settle with Satan on those terms!!! NOT EVEN CLOSE!!!!!!  So for the girls I was talking with, I challenged them to find out what we got when Jesus died. Not what we got later after we die, but what we can have RIGHT NOW!!!!!
I had them read chapters like I John 4 and 5, Ephesians 1, 2, and 3, Romans 8, and John 14 and 15.

And here are just a few of the things they found. Things that God says we get NOW because Jesus was willing to die.

• Christ becomes our Brother.

• We are completely sanctified.

• There is no more Condemnation

• The power of God that took Jesus from the very grasp of death is the power God will use to change us within if we let it.

• As we learn to know the love of Jesus we are filled with all and everything that God has and is! "Filled with all the Fullness of God"

• We are given a Comforter!  The Holy Spirit to teach us what we need to do.
• We have victory over the world and it's temptations.

These things seem like old news, but guess what?  Even though we've all heard them, most of us have NO IDEA what it looks, means, or feels like to live these out in their reality. We try and try and try and try and fail just as many times, because we don't know what it means to let GOD complete the work that He has started in our lives!  I think that's the main difference between all those "Amazing Spiritual Giants" and us.  They believed that all the things in God's word were true, and they let Him do it in their lives. We think we believe it, but we really don't, and we leave the miraculous power of God behind as we try to gain the abundant Christian life on our own.

But if we can start stepping out in faith, and just getting to know Jesus, the abundant life He talked about will become more and more of a reality. 

That is why He died, and it's the deal that He made when He gave up His life!  He gave up everything so He could give us everything.

On Good Friday this year, we heard a song that's been running through my mind ever since, and it's really simple, but it's just a reminder of my Saviour's total victory, and His love for me. 

Here's the Chorus:

"This is how Love wins, every single time,

Climbing high upon a tree where someone else should die.

This is how Love heals, the deepest part of you,

Letting Himself bleed into the middle of your wounds,

And this is what Love says standing at the door,

You don't have to be who you've been before,

Silenced by His voice, death can't speak again,

This is how love wins.

What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood, nothing but the blood,

What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood, nothing but the blood,

Cause' this is what love says, standing at the door, you don't have to be who you've been before!

Silenced by His voice, death can't speak again!

This is how Love wins!"