For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.
1 Peter 3:18 ESV
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At Easter we celebrate a great victory at a terrible cost. The agonizing work Christ completed on the cross and His miraculous resurrection from death’s grip changed literally everything.
For followers of Christ, Jesus’ victory over Satan and death is the trigger event that eliminates the:
- Penalty of sin
- Power of sin
- Presence of sin
Penalty of Sin
Christ’s death paid the debt and suffering of sin that I was supposed to bear myself. My pitiful state before God’s perfect holiness and my rejection of Him and His ways, was rightly to have resulted in eternal separation from Him – a most horrific penalty. But, Christ, by his terrible suffering on the cross, bore my sins upon Himself as an act of unmerited favor to all mankind.
The removal of the penalty of my sin was an act completed in the PAST on the cross.
Power of Sin
When Jesus returned to the Father to sit at His right hand, the Holy Spirit was sent to earth to live inside each follower of Christ. Yes, God’s Spirit lives in you…like right now (if you are a follower of His). This living Spirit of God in us, provides the needed power to overcome the power of today’s sin. As we daily submit ourselves to Him, we allow His power to freely flow through us to overcome any sin temptation that may come our way.
The Spirit’s empowerment for us to overcome sin is accomplished in the PRESENT.
Presence of Sin
When we die, we will not be in the presence of sin. Today, in our broken world, we are in the presence of evil and its heinous effects. But when we enter into eternal glory with Christ, the Father and the Holy Spirit, we will be free from even the presence of sin. No more police needed, no counselors needed, no alarm systems, no drunk drivers, no rape, no ego-driven tirades, no pornography, no addiction to food, no self-reliance….all evil will be behind us.
The absence from the presence of sin is in the FUTURE.
Prayer
I thank and praise Jesus our Lord for the ugly, awful, painful, tormenting, anguishing, terrifying work He did on the cross for me and for you. I praise Him for His work in the Past, the Spirit’s work in the Present and I praise the Trinity that we can enjoy Him again oh so fully in the Future.
In the living name of our glorious Savior I pray, Amen.
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Happy Easter. May the grace of our Lord Jesus fall fresh on you today.
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1 John 3:16 ESV
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
Isaiah 53:5 ESV
But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
