It Is Finished
A new year is here and most of us have vowed or pledged to never return to our old ways or vices. A new year is exciting and anticipated with marvelous thoughts to how we can improve ourselves. We pledge to lose weight, eat less, work out, have more calm demeanor, to be more frugal with our spending, improve our homes or ourselves as in a new makeover or a new you. These things are all very wonderful! Purchasing a new home, new car, increasing your family, can be an epitome of a New Year’s resolution. Our heavenly Father honors all of these attributes to ourselves and to our fellowman. However, there is a spiritual awakening to the body of Christ that our God in heaven wants to assure us that in these substance that we yearn for are good but soon with time it will fade, leaving you with a cold abandoned feeling and a residue of an uneasiness that you can not shake.
Often times we feel a dull ache in our hearts, souls, and minds. So we look at our dream list, New Year’s resolutions, and say to ourselves, “Perhaps this will take away the dull, unclean feeling that I am experiencing.” And to no prevail, it is still there when we go down our New Year resolution list with a check-off score only to see that you still have an uncertainty in your heart and soul.
Materialism only satisfies for a short period time. Then, you once again discover that it wasn’t what you thought it would be. You then go out, or to the internet, searching for more material items and then it becomes a cycle of frustrations and causes you to look elsewhere for satisfaction. Many of God’s people pledge to lose a certain amount of weight this year, and most of you will. But, when you look in the mirror, you are only reminded that you are the same person. You still feel this overwhelming consumption of weight that boggles you down. At first you think it’s a physical weight, but when you lose your body weight, your ideal goal, that’s when you know something is wrong. Then we branch out to some other sorts of comfort, perhaps food, drink, shopping, but it’s still there.
It is an underlying, invisible evidence that something is wrong. It feels heavy but you can not see it. You recheck your resolution list and you have covered each and every one of them. You can’t sleep at nights, maybe a midnight snack will do, or a walk in the park, or a quick run, and you still feel this weight on you: video games, a lot of television, movies, and it’s still there. You cry out, “Dear God, what is it?” And then you hear a small, still voice in your inner man that quietly says: “sin, sin.”
Yes beloved, sin is defined in the Bible as all unrighteousness (I JOHN 5:17). This is the very thing that separates us from God because he is holy. No man can number or count sin because it is innumerable in its ways. There is only one thing in this world that can take away our sins and that is the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed on the cross for you and I. Sin has to be confessed. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to cleanse us from all of our sins and unrighteousness (I John 1:9).
There are times when we as Christians may tell a lie or gossip, lose our temper, or even use profanity which we often say “we slipped”, or have an unclean thought, coveting your neighbor’s house or possessions, overeating, gluttony, all of these things are sin. Salvation does not exempt us from sin, salvation saves us from damnation. The work that Jesus Christ did on the cross by shedding his blood was to cleanse and wipe away our sins. We have to, by faith, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (HEBREWS 11:1), receive this. You can not see the blood that Jesus shed now, but it was just as effective as the moment the lamb of God, Jesus Christ, was nailed to the cross and his blood came pouring out to cleanse our sins and the world.
Scripture tells us there is life in the blood (LEVITICUS 17:11). The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (ROMANS 6:23). It is up to us to make sure that our sins are cleansed by the precious blood of Jesus by repentance. Repentance should be daily along with our every day prayers. The Lord’s prayer is a wonderful model for this type of praying (MATTHEW 6: 9-15). There should not be a day that goes by that we do not repent for our sins. The most important thing about sin is that if you are a Christian your sins have already been cleansed by the blood of Jesus because of the work that he did on the cross (the shedding of the blood). We as Christians, by faith, have to receive and believe this.
True repentance comes with much sorrow for what we have done. This sorrow is brought to our minds and hearts by the Holy Spirit, which convicts us of our wrong doing, and that would be our radar to instantly repent! This is the heavy weight, we as the body of Christ, often feel that we can not get rid of: unrepentant sin.
The Holy Spirit is marvelous. If you are a Christian, he will convict (show you of your wrongdoings) your sin and will continue to nudge your hearts until you repent and be in right standings through God again through Jesus Christ. You say, “What happens if I decide not to repent?” Beloved, sin isn’t anything you want to play with, it may be enjoyable for a time, but eventually it will find you out and it will always kill you. But salvation is salvation; if you’re saved you’re saved, but there is a great cost in sinning. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ (ROMANS 6:23). Do not be deceived, the adversary will tell you that because you are saved you can do whatever you please. This is not true. Sin will kill you.
Everything that God purpose for you and I was wrought on the cross. Jesus knows our beginnings to the end. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the author of our lives. Jesus wrote the book. It is up to us to pursue what he wants us to do by faith. One of the most difficult things for a Christian to do is to branch out and to take a step of faith. We are accustomed to seeing or observing our new endeavors, but what happens when we see where we are going and we fall? Yes, fall with eyes wide open. We will always fall and stumble when we try to do things in our own ways and recollect. We can only see so far in the natural. When we walk by faith, we do not see anything. We are spiritually blind, therefore, we trust God in heaven to lead and guide us by his Holy Spirit.
Therefore, let us put on the top of our New Year’s resolution list that we will turn away from our sins as a people, a church, and a nation, and say “Dear Jesus, I repent of my sins. Remove the weight of sin out of my life. I accept all that you have done for me on the cross, and I will always remember those last words of wisdom that you parted from your mouth before you gave up the Ghost and went to heaven: “It is finished.” Amen.
“ Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (HEBREWS 12:1-2).
“When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost” (JOHN 19:30).
Glory to God, Pastor Helen Trower
