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Wait it out. Wait and see. Wait upon the Lord. Things will break our hearts and leave us in stunned silence. But our God is sovereign, and though the sinfulness of people, the brokenness of this world and the maliciousness of Satan all rise up to seemingly stop God’s work, He makes them bow down and serve His purposes. Struggles, suffering, sin and Satan will be defeated! Every foe we will ever face will be overturned, overthrown and overcome because Jesus is putting and will put every enemy under His foot in final and forever victory. Until then, we wait. But we wait in real hope of better things.

Confusion. Shock. Fear. Uncertainty. Heartbreak. Silence. When they laid the breathless, lifeless body of Jesus in the tomb, it must have seemed like their own breath and life had been drained from them. Jesus. Was. Dead. And when the stone was rolled into place, it must have looked like their hopes and fate were sealed inside with the One they had pinned their hopes on and trusted their fate to. They didn’t see it coming and wished they hadn’t seen it at all. They laid Jesus there. But He would not lie there for long. They thought it was the end. But it was just the beginning. It was finished. But it was not over.

The gruesomeness of what Jesus went through should grip us. This was going to be an ugly, horrific scene that should rightly furrow our brows, sicken our stomachs, and stab our hearts because it was our sin that caused this sacrifice to be needed. The graciousness of what Jesus went through should also grip us. This was going to be a beautiful, wonderful act of love that should make our eyes dance, make our faces smile, and make our hearts leap with joy because He was willing to do this for us. Hallelujah! No one goes to heaven except through Him. And no one would go through Him unless He went to the cross.

Jesus knew what awaited in Jerusalem. Unimaginable torment. Unthinkable anguish. Unspeakable evil. Unwarranted brutality. Unprecedented suffering. No one would ever face anything like what Jesus set His face to go to. He would absorb the wrath of God for our sins to secure the grace of God for our salvation so we could become the people of God for all eternity. He knew the horror of what was coming, but He lovingly and unflinchingly set his face towards it, locked eyeballs with it, and did not back away, back off or back down from it. The spotless Lamb of God headed for the place of His slaughter for us.

Jesus lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death, and rose victoriously from the grave. He did not live, die and rise so we could remain stuck in our sin and struggles as if He did nothing at all. He came to forgive us and free us from: bitterness, selfishness, laziness, unkindness, purposelessness, sadness, fearfulness and all ungodliness so we might walk in newness of life. Sin-defeating, life-enabling, heart-transforming, joy-securing resurrection power is ours! May we have a confidence in and dependance on the power and presence of Jesus today. We aren’t who we used to be, and we don’t have to live like we are.

The gospel is not a self-help plan; it is a rescue plan. God does not ask us to fix ourselves in five simple steps, but rather to trust in the one stunning step He took in sending Jesus to fix all that is broken in us. His generosity is breathtaking, His goodness is jaw-dropping and His grace is amazing, for He treated His Son like a sinner on the cross so sinners like you and me could be treated like a son. The more we are aware of the depths of our sin, the more we will appreciate the depths of His salvation. So… let us marvel at and rejoice in this today: Jesus paid a debt He did not owe because we owed a debt we could not pay.

Bad circumstances, bad people and bad news make me want it. The more I survey the landscape of the sinfulness and brokenness we are all a part of, I look forward to our eternal heavenly home that Jesus is preparing for us so we can be with Him forever. A place where there will be no more sorrow, suffering or sin. A place where bad things will be eliminated, good things will be perfected and the best things will be unveiled. Our citizenship is in heaven, and God has put a longing in us for our homeland. When it’s hard here, let’s take heart and remember: He is preparing a place for us, and preparing us for a place.

Imperfect words. Imperfect actions. Imperfect thoughts. Imperfect attitudes. Imperfect motives. Even though we are not who we used to be, we are also not yet who we will become. We are imperfect people. That doesn’t mean we should be indifferent to our sin-produced flaws or complacent in our grace-driven effort to overcome them. We should work hard to act like Jesus on the outside while God works to make us more like Jesus on the inside. But we do this secure in His love, safe in His mercy and strengthened by His power. Today, let us strive for holy living while relying on and resting in His grace.

Someone once said that God doesn’t care how many Bible verses we memorize as long as we love others. But the Bible is where we find our definition for what love is and our demonstration of what love does. Knowing what God has to say about love keeps us from forming our own opinions about what is right and wrong about how we feel and treat other people. It also reminds us of His steadfast love for us despite our faults, flaws and failures. This helps us be loving towards others who, like us, are in need of grace. God cares that we know the Bible because that’s how He prepares us to care for others.

Birds fly. Flowers bloom. Honey sweetens. Water dampens. Light illuminates. It’s automatic and appropriate that they do these things because that’s how they were made. This is their nature and design, and it is right to expect them to act in a certain way just as it is right to expect saving faith in Jesus to work itself out in love. It is normal. It is natural. When God’s grace remakes us into people of faith, the new love we have for God will burst forth in acts of love for others. We can’t help but love. We can’t stop loving. We will live this out imperfectly, but this is for sure: A faith that saves is a faith that loves.