In our lives we do a lot of things that we are not really proud of, but as I was reading the most recent message from my spiritual father, Gary Hargrave, an amazing picture of Salvation came to me. I hope I can help you to see what I saw:
You go with a friend to have some fun and you end up doing something really wrong and both of you end up getting caught. It was something you were not supposed to do, and because you got caught there are consequences—you both get taken in and have to talk to the judge. Your Father sends His Son, your older brother, to take care of the situation and He bails you out of the situation, and you are free. So you go home and be with your Father and brother, with your whole family (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).
Your “friend” is stuck in prison because he is too proud not to ask your Father also to “save” him and refuses to believe (Mark 16:15-16); and because of that he has to suffer the consequences of what he has done.
It is not that you deserve less punishment than him (Ephesians 2:1-2), but because you chose to receive the free gift of Salvation, you have your debt taken care of. But your “friend” is not happy with it; he will keep on trying to make you feel bad, guilty and dirty all the time. But the truth is that you accepted the free gift of Salvation and the paying off of your debt and the bail out. But he hasn’t!
This is the moment I have to decide who is my Family, who is the MOST important to me, who is my Father. I don’t have to feel obligated to a life in the past, to a life of doing what is wrong and a life of not having a Father, of not being loved and accepted.
The condemnation is a true thing, because you have done something wrong and the wage of sin is death, but Christ already died for all (2 Corinthians 5:14) and in Him there is no condemnation! If we choose to open up and accept the free gift from God through Jesus Christ we don’t have to be under the condemnation (Romans 6:23), we get our freedom!! We can go home and be with our Family. What a sense of thankfulness and appreciation, this is why we worship!!
“So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1, NLT)
Posted in Pastor's Blog