What’s good about Good Friday?
Why is it called Good Friday? In England it’s called Good Friday because the greatest good was done on this day… he who knew no sin became the perfect sin sacrifice on our behalf, that we may be made the righteousness of God in Him.
We live in a world that rejects the truth that there is evil in this world… They call good evil and evil good. The sin nature that we inherited from Adam wants to keep in control. Pride refuses to bow the knee in humility before God. The doctrine of the devil says that there is no need for God. You can make it on your own. However, those who think they deserve their “just desserts” are in for a rude awakening… for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.
To understand the righteousness we have in Christ, we must first have an understanding of the darkness of the world and of our own selfish fallen nature. Like the prodigal son, we must turn from the pig pen of this world to “arise and go unto my father.” When we realize the depth of the depravity of life without God, only then can we turn back to him.
Sin separates us from God. Sin is to miss the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. We must first be able to see the mark in order to aim at the mark. Those who are blinded by the carnal nature, are unable to see the spiritual mark of God, the mark of fellowship with him. Jesus came to open the eyes of those born spiritually blind. For the natural man understandeth not the things of the spirit for they are spiritually discerned. God uses the pain and tribulation of this world in order to show us that in our own power we cannot overcome the world. To come to Christ, there is a hard way and an easy way. Either we may come to Jesus on our knees voluntarily or we may come involuntarily when he allows this world to bring us to our knees through the suffering of shame, guilt, and pain.
It’s easy to justify sin… Jesus, quoting from Isaiah said, “In vain do they worship me; they draw nigh unto me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” God doesn’t want your words or your works… he wants your heart. The requirement for coming to the throne if grace is a broken and a contrite heart. A prideful heart cannot approach God. Either we come to him with a humble heart or we will be humiliated, our heart shattered by the depravity of this world. When we turn from the world, arise and go unto our father, He’ll pick up the threads of our broken hearts and weave them together again.
Every man is a slave… either he is a slave to his sin nature, or he is a slave to his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus came to set the sinner free. Without him, every man is captive to his fallen carnal nature. Only through Christ’s redeeming work, can we be set free from the bondage of sin. Without Christ we have no choice… we are held captive to sin against our wills. The only way to escape the bondage of sin, is through God’s eternal plan of redemption… Jesus Christ. Only when we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe that God has raised him from the dead can we be set free from the bondage of sin. “Confessing Jesus as Lord” means to make him my master and myself his slave. Release from the slavery of this world is to change Lordships: Make me a captive Lord, and then I shall be free…
Good Friday was the day that the price for my sin was paid in full. Worthy is the Lamb of God. It’s not about the price, rather, it’s about value. How much did God value your eternal life? Value is measured by the worth of the payment… We were dead in trespasses and sin. We were weighed in the balance and found wanting. We could not reconcile the scales of the debt of our transgressions. However on Good Friday, He who was without sin, became the full payment to redeem us from our debt of sin. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we may be made the righteousness of God in Him.
May God richly bless you as we celebrate our redemption through death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael