F is for Finished, because it is.
I clicked “send”, made sure it went through, then closed my laptop and exhaled in relief: Ahh…It’s finished. I’d been working on it night and day, and when I wasn’t working on it I was thinking about working on it. Ever been there? It’s not so much the time you spend working on something but the time you spend thinking about working on it. My mind and energies were depleted. As soon as the kids were settled for the afternoon, I crawled into my bed and took a nap, the first time I’d really rested that week.
I couldn’t rest until it was finished.
And as soon as it was, my whole body knew it. The sleep that had evaded me swept back all at once as I slept soundly despite the bright afternoon sun. The rest of knowing it is finished.
We rest because we know that it is finished.
Today, Good Friday, we meditate on Christ’s final words, His victorious cry from the cross of Calvary, the sacred words that fill my eyes with tears:
“It is finished.” (John 19:30).
From eternity past Jesus had a project. Nothing surprises God, and it was not Plan B that Jesus had to die in our place. He knew all along, and Jesus knew all along that this was His project. In a divine sort of way, Jesus never rested. Until then.
Then He finished.
In one final surrendering act Jesus “gave up His spirit” and the full wrath of God was poured out on His sinless perfect lamb. All the punishment for my selfishness, my pride, my greed. All the punishment for the rapists and robbers, swindlers and sex-traffickers. The most heinous of crimes, He took the punishment. He laid down His spirit. Died.
But of course Sunday’s coming.
But here’s where I get excited. Do you know what Jesus did after He rose from the dead? After he appeared, bodily, to more than 500 people? After he gave the great commission and then ascended into heaven? Do you know what He did after that?
He sat down.
Why? Because it was finished.
“But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God.” Hebrews 10:12
I took a nap. Jesus sat down at the right hand of God. His work was done. Finished. But here’s the beautiful part.
Because it is finished we too can rest.
“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from His.” Hebrews 4:10-11
Of course this rest involves striving, because our work is to preach this holy rest to the rest of the world. But the work of reconciling our sinful selves to God is finished. We can never add to it.
It is finished.
So even in our striving there is rest. There is peace. There is sleep and calm and sweet sleep because Christ has done it. He has conquered death. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. No matter what the outcome of whatever is our “thing”, we can still have rest because of Christ.
All week I have been praying, “God arrest me all over again with the wonder of the cross.” Who knew that in arresting me I would discover rest?
I pray, this Good Friday, that our souls are arrested by the truth that it is finished. And I pray that you, dear friends, can rest in the finished work of the cross. Nothing we can add to it.
We can bow, give thanks, receive …
… and rest.
Three Good Fears (3)
We’ve been talking the last couple days about fear. If you’re just jumping in, would you check out the first and second posts, then join us as we close? Thanks for reading.
:: I was reminded of my third fear this morning in my Bible reading. In 1 Kings 13 we read of a man of God, a prophet, who prophesied one of the greatest, clearest prophecies in all of scripture. He prophesies about the boy Josiah (calls him by name) would be raised up many many years later, and who would draw Israel back to God (for a time). He is used by God to speak this great prophecy and then is tempted by king Jeroboam to go to Jeroboam’s house but the prophet remains steadfast by insisting,
“I will not … for it was commanded me by the word of the LORD saying, “You shall neither eat bread nor drink water nor return by the way that you came.” So he went another way and did not return by the way that he came to Bethel.
But then just a little way later, along his journey, another man of God, another prophet is sent to this first man, and he goes and invites him into his house. The prophet is resolute in his obedience to God’s word and doesn’t go, but the second prophet presses him and insists and even goes so far as to lie and say that God told him to bring the prophet back to his house.
If this isn’t a test I don’t know what is. And the result? The first prophet gives in and goes with him to his house, abandoning his conviction he had held. Then after he leaves, having disobeyed, he is attacked by a lion and killed.
Done. Just like that. Eaten by a lion. From the heights of a powerful prophet, fore-telling the great King Josiah to come, to being torn to shreds by a lion and left on the roadside to die.
Tragic. Sin is always tragic.
Such a quick downfall. Such a stupid sin. Could it be that perhaps we are most susceptible to absolute demise when we’ve just been thrust to the pinnacle of our Christian experience?
“So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” 1 Corinthians 10:12
I recently had coffee with a woman who comes from a church across the country who experienced the devastation of a pastor running off with a secretary. Of course the result was the absolute ruin of two families and most of a church body. Sin always ruins lives. And oh wouldn’t the enemy love to take down the most prominent, the shepherds, the leaders, the prophets, the ones who represent our Almighty God to the masses. It was his tactic in 1 Kings, it is his tactic now.
Last night Jeff and I had our date night out. We sat over prawns and talked of life and the Lord and our kids and our lives. And we talked of this. That we could just be faithful! That’s all we’re called to do. The gist even of all of these three good fears is that we learn to be obedient and faithful and teach our children to be obedient and faithful. In short–long obedience is where it’s at.
Lifelong discipleship is lifelong obedience.
So that’s why this is new breath-prayer,
Lord help me to be faithful.
Faithful to my husband, my kids, to the Lord and His calling, to my friends, with our finances. Just faithful. That’s all I want to be.
That’s all we’re called to be.
And a healthy dose of fear, knowing our flesh and its weakness, can help us to walk soberly, circumspectly, redeeming the time. But most of all we must know our God, because “when we are faithless He is faithful because He cannot deny Himself.”
Our God is faithfulness, we learn by looking to Him.
Three Good Fears (2)
Yesterday we introduced the topic of fear and desire as the motivators of life. If you have a second, check out yesterday’s post, and then join in the discussion. If you were with us yesterday, I hope you had some time to think about your fears, the good ones, the ones that can fuel faith.
::My second fear comes from, in my opinion, the scariest passage in the Bible. Matthew 7:21-23 reads,
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
This verse is couched in Jesus’ larger sermon on the Mount, tucked in between the clear teaching that a tree is known by its fruit and that the wise man (who builds his house on the rock) is the one who hears God’s Word and does it. In short?
Obedience is the hallmark of true faith and one’s fruit never lies. I pray that I am living a simple life of obedience to God, cultivating the soil of my heart so HE can bear fruit that lasts. But the fact that some will truly be deceived into thinking they are doing God’s work (prophecy, demon-possession, and miracles) when the real work was simply obey the Father–this is sobering indeed. I tremble at the truth of this. This fear should keep us on our knees.
I want to be very careful not to read too much into these words, but it is interesting that the three things listed are prophesy, driving out demons, and performing miracles in Jesus’ name. Certainly not saying that those who do those things are guilty of this! But perhaps it is those things that seem so religious that are most tempting to pursue instead of pursuing obedience. At least in my own life I’m never tempted to “over-pursue” obedience. Not much glory in it, not much that’s addicting, not much there that can ever feed my flesh.
That’s probably why obedience is the hallmark of truth faith.
Obedience builds our house on the rock, obedience creates soil where real fruit can grow. Obedience is the proactive way that we can grow in humility (which is the soil where all fruit grows). We can’t necessarily make ourselves humble, but we can choose to submit our will to His, which is the humblest move we can make.
The fear? That all kinds of neat religious-looking activity would crowd out the good stuff.
The stuff that’s authentic.
The stuff that matters but perhaps that no one sees.
But He sees. And He’s the one whose words we’ll hear someday? Some will hear, “I never knew you,” and some will hear, “Well done…” That’s about as good of a fear as you can get, right? Back to that breath prayer,
Lord, help me be faithful.
Three Good Fears (1)
Fear and desire are the motivators of all that we do. And of course they are connected. We desire that which will take us as far as possible from our fears, and we fear that which will take us as far as possible from what we desire. Both can be good, both can be bad. But we are wise to consider them and get down to the bottom of both–because whether we like it or not that’s what will drive all that we do.
So while I have plenty of unhealthy fears (such as scuba diving, because it only takes one bad experience to scare us for life), I was recently processing through the real things. The real fears, the ones that are good (in appropriate measure), the ones that drive us to God and keep us careful and cautious.
Of course they are, in essence, all the same. That is, missing this:
When we arrive at eternity’s shore, where death is just a memory and tears are no more. We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring, Your bride will come together and we’ll sing, You’re Beautiful.
That’s a day I do not want to miss.
I don’t want to miss that day, I don’t want to waste my life, I don’t want to get there and be filled with regret that I spent my life perfecting my tan when the real paradise will just have begun. And, of course, by tan I mean all that is temporal, but in Oregon there’s nothing more temporal than a tan…
But I think the specifics of how that’s played out is individual to each of us. We’re each prone to wander in different directions. In different ways. So as I sit before the Lord these are the good fears I identify. Perhaps you can relate. I’ll share these in three separate posts so you do not grow weary as you wade through words. Thanks.
:: The first fear is simply that my children would not follow Christ. I still remember when I was a kid reading some words of James Dobson that he had spoken to one of his children. He said his two greatest words of wisdom to his children were this:
“Be there.”
Though I was only a child at the time I remember being haunted by his words. Yes, I thought, no wonder my parents prayed and pored over my life with such fervor. No wonder my mom became the Oregon coordinator for moms in touch, meeting every single week with dozens of other moms, lifting us kids up to our God, holding us up to grace. No wonder my dad was so stinkin’ involved in my life all the time. 🙂 They want to make sure I would be there.
Now that I have my own little ones I understand this even more. Of course one of our greatest earthly responsibilities (second only to serving our husbands) is to raise our children in the ways of the Lord. I never want to take it for granted that my children will love and serve and follow Christ. Ido believe that God’s word encourages us that when we train up a child in the way he should go that when he is old he will not depart from it (Prov. 22:6). But my fear is that I would somehow get distracted by other “ministry” and miss my highest calling. A fear that somehow I will not be faithful with the little lambs he’s entrusted to my care. A good fear, and real. It fuels my new breath prayer,
Lord, help me to be faithful.
Another good fear is on its way, but for today: What are your fears? And not the ones about spiders or even the ones about cancer. The real ones, the deep ones, the ones the flow from your spirit. The ones that can fuel faith. Will you think a bit about that today and join me again tomorrow?
Thank you for reading.