Thursday, May 4, 2017

You made the cut!


I’ve been overwhelmed this week with Travis Green’s song “The Hill”. One particular line has been on repeat in my mind and has truly spoken life to me. In the midst of an ad lib, Green sings “The cross don’t discriminate”. Don’t get caught up in the grammatical issue with the statement but rather feel the enormity of what he is reminding you of. What Jesus did on the cross was for you! You with your bad attitude. You with your doubt. You with your bad decision making. You with your struggle. You with your lagging faith. You with your rejection. You with your fatigue. Christ took all of that and put it on His back and wore it straight through crucifixion to victory. He didn’t have a list of “yes” and “no” and cast the sins of some aside. Nope…He took it all! So today, it is my assignment to tell you that whatever you are facing, worrying about, trying to overcome has been handled.  Your “it” made the cut because the cross doesn’t discriminate. Everyone was eligible for true freedom!

Sometimes when there is a lot going on in your life, you can be distracted by the noise. You can’t hear and you can’t discern which voice you should be listening to. It’s in those moments that the enemy tries to take you back to all that you have missed or gotten wrong. He’s tricky and persistent and will look for any small opening to squeeze through. Don’t let him, saints! Don’t get caught up in what you see and miss what God is doing. Where a lot of you go wrong is that you make regular trips back to Calvary! Not to celebrate what Jesus did but rather to pick up what He took away from you. Stop doing it! Change your direction and focus your attention back on the freedom that He has already given you. Your responsibility is to stay in that place and LIVE! Your “it” can’t win against the freedom of Christ because the cross doesn’t discriminate. Sin is defeated because of what He did!

Romans 6 spoke to me this morning and reminded me of WHO I belong to! Sin and doubt and all of those old things can no longer keep you bound. Will you receive it today? Will you tell abandonment to flee? Will you tell sin to flee? Will you recognize that what Christ did was for every situation that you face? Especially this one!

“Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin’s every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did. That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.” (Rom. 6:6-14 MSG)

Can you celebrate with me in this moment? Can you lift up a shout that your “it” cannot hold anything over your head? Can you do a dance or run a lap because the cross doesn’t discriminate? Can you receive the finished work of Christ in your life? I declare today that you have the victory! It was finished way back on Calvary and today you will walk it out! Victory is yours, says God! It has been handled and YOU ARE FREE! Receive it…

Amen

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