Finished Friday

This morning I have been pondering the 2015 Lenten season being over and that today is Good Friday. I can’t lie, I’m pretty happy Lent is over, I passed on coffee for more than 40 days this Lent, with hopes that it would draw me close to the ONE who gave it all for me. My friend Dustin told me Jesus would not be pleased with my choice of giving up God’s perfect bean… at least it’s Easter and I have something to repent of : )

Then I had this other thought… we know today to be “Good Friday” now, but nobody could envision good coming out of the senseless death of Jesus on that faithful Friday some 2000 years ago. A righteous man murdered simply because he challenged the way religious people lived their lives before God and others. They didn’t like His way of love, so they chose their own way. One of intolerance and violence in the name of “god”. We can all judge the people responsible for the killing of Jesus and think to ourselves, “how could they” especially as we see 2000 years removed the senseless murder for what it was.

However, I choose my own way everyday… I chose my own religious path instead of the one Jesus revealed as loving and truthful far too often and choosing my own way tends to leave a path of destruction behind me. People close to me get hurt, I claim superiority over people I have never met… but mostly I  hurt myself. When I judge others, I become more intolerant. When I hold myself up as the model of perfection, the view I have of myself gets more and more distorted… and the truth of my imperfection that I need to confront gets lost in the fantasy of how I see myself.

Good friday is about a death that ends all death… because of the sacrifice of Jesus, death does not have the final say. If we trust Jesus… eternal life as God intended it to be is ours. But Good Friday goes beyond that. It points to a God who loves you and I in-spite of our imperfections, and allows His truth to illuminate our need for not only saving, but transformation into the people God wants us to be.

May your Friday be full of the awareness that Jesus died for you, and a desire to see yourself In The Truth and begin to be transformed into the man or woman Jesus desires you to be.

Peace