Blessed Are the Messy

day eighteen

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

Have you ever thought about Jesus' sacrifice for us and felt crushingly guilty? We see everything He had to go through because of our sins, and it's hard not to feel responsible. And, we really are- we are broken people, and it should have been us up there on that cross. All of that can make this beautiful gift feel more sad than joyful.

So why do we call it "Good Friday?" It doesn't seem good at first. Jesus was betrayed, beaten, tortured, killed, all in our place. The shame this brings out in me is so profound. Every sin of my life seems to have gone into that moment, but actually,

Every sin of my life went away in that moment.

Shame is not from the Lord. Conviction is from the Lord. Shame is what we trade in for the joy of the Lord. Jesus did not go up there to Calvary thinking about how disappointed He was in us for sinning against Him. He went up there thinking about how much He loved us. It's "for God so loved the world," not, "for God was so disappointed in the world."

We are not supposed to remember all this suffering just to be ashamed. Should we be looking inside ourselves and leaving behind anything that doesn't please Him? Absolutely. But what we're supposed to take away is not that we are bad- it's that He is good. We can have so much joy knowing that even though we have sinned so much, He still loves us so much that He would go through all that pain to take that sin away. John 15:13 says, "there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends." No matter what we've done, we are Jesus' friends. Let the sheer power of that love comfort and astound you today, and whenever you get caught up in the guilt of your sin.