Friday, March 25, 2016
“Thank God For the Work of the Cross”
by Dona Hake
Today we celebrate Good Friday, the day our Lord Jesus Christ laid down His life, and shed his blood for us. I encourage you today to think upon which Jesus did for you, think about when your life was in bondage, and the day you felt the weight of your sin leave your burdened heart. May we always be thankful for what we have been delivered from. I will never forget the night I dropped to my knees and surrendered to Him. I did not know how heavy the burdens were that I carried until I was washed clean that evening in that old Methodist church. May we always be thankful for what we have been delivered from. I would like to share with you from first John 1:9
“If we confess our sins, He will forgive our sins. We can trust God. He does what is right. He will make us clean from all the wrongs we have done.”
I love this translation and I found it in a children’s devotional that I recently purchased. I love the simplicity of how this is worded. The Lord wants us to come to Him and confess when we have done wrong. He does not want us to hide the truth for He wants us to tell Him the whole truth, He wants to know our sins and mistakes, and He desires that we confess them with our mouth. He does not want us to run and blame someone else instead He wants us to be accountable for that which we have done.
Today may we celebrate in our hearts the joy of our sins being washed away. Our sins are forever forgotten, and not to be brought up to us again. I know I probably shared this before but it bears repeating today for it fits well with this devotional. Many years ago when I was teaching the little ones one Sunday morning, I was speaking to them about the forgiveness of sin. It was a nice day, so I took them outside for this messy lesson that I was planning to share with them. This is such a precious memory in my heart of teaching little ones, and I will never forget their little faces as I shared the message of God’s forgiveness with them.
I made a bowl of mud and I had a pitcher of fresh clean water sitting alongside of the bowl of mud. I began to talk to the children about how sin makes our heart dirty, and that we need to keep our hearts clean. I began to rub the mud all over my hands and arms up to my elbows. The little boys especially loved this as they watched me getting all messy and muddy just for them. I began to tell them that this is how our hearts look when we do not ask Jesus to forgive us. It gets bigger and bigger, but as we confess our sins the Lord’s blood will wash those sins away. I began to take the pitcher of fresh clean water and pour it over myself and my arms were turning clean in front of their eyes. I told them to look down at the grass and ask them if they could see the mud anymore, and it was a wonderful way to show them that all the dirty water absorbed in the ground, and they could not see it any longer. I then began to share with them that if we confess our sins that our sins are washed away and never to be seen again by the Lord.
May we rejoice this day that our hearts can be clean, our sins have been washed away, and we are free in Jesus name! Thank you Lord for what you did at the cross for us!