Stopping to Think

  Photo by eberhard 🖐 grossgasteiger on Unsplash Colossians 2:13-15, "And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, triumphing over them in him." (English Standard Version) How do you see the cross? Do you look at it and see a place of defeat? Does it seem like the great tragedy of history? Paul tells us in Colossians 2 that the only defeat that day was suffered by Satan and his hordes. Not Christ. He triumphed at the cross. There he took the plan that Satan, and Judas, and the chief priests, and all the enemies of God meant for evil, and he turned them upside down. Instead of being defeated by death, he stole its power. "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the l...

Today, roughly 1,980 years ago, Jesus observed the Passover with his disciples for the last time, pointing toward the next day when he would become their Passover lamb. His atoning, sin covering, wrath absorbing blood is applied to all who place their faith and trust in Him; those who would have it placed on the proverbial doorposts of their souls. The first Passover was a shadow, a picture of Christ to come. It pointed year after year to the necessity of blood to cover sin, and the deliverance afforded to those who trusted God. Jesus made the final sacrifice, and covered it once for all.