It Is Finished

"It is finished!" With those words Jesus changed everything; past, present, and future.

God has been showing me recently how easily it has been for me as a Christian to continue to live in guilt and shame from my past choices. For past mistakes, we often feel like we have to carry our guilt in order to truly be sorry for what we have done. But in Jesus, the initial guilt we feel after doing something wrong is just a mechanism he has given us to show us that we've messed up so that we can change. Guilt is a tool to convict us, but His grace sets us free! Long-term guilt and shame after we have already stopped our sin is completely not of Him!

When Jesus said the words "It is finished" he took all of the punishment for our sin, which means that we shouldn't try to punish ourselves by remaining in shame when He has already taken our punishment! When we live in our guilt and shame, we ignore the the fact that His sacrifice was sufficient. As Max Lucado's book God's Story, Your Story says, "His sacrifice is a sufficient one. Our accomplishments don't enhance it. Our stumbles don't diminish it. The sacrifice of Christ is a total and unceasing and accomplished work." 


The words "It is finished" do not mean "it is begun" or "it is initiated" or "it is a work in progress". No. It means IT. IS. FINISHED. 

What greater freedom can come from that realization that Jesus has completely and totally taken our sins and our shame?? For me, that realization has given me so much more freedom than i've ever known! Instead of feeling like I need to continuously prove to Him that I can do better, that I can make up for what I've done, I realize that He has already taken it all. In fact, He's already forgotten about what I did! (Heb. 8:12) If He has forgotten about it, why would I feel like I need to remind myself of it in guilt?  

Sin is defined as us missing God's perfect mark, as us breaking His law. Our God has multiple facets in our relationship with Him. He is my Abba, He is my King, He is my Savior, and He is my Beloved. He calls me His Beloved! He absolutely adores us. When we sin, our Abba, our Beloved, does not look down on us in disgust waiting for us to come crawling to him weeping for forgiveness for the mess we've made. No, He is with us, and when we sin, He sees that we're giving up His best for us for something far, far less. He knows what is the very best that He wants for His children, His loves, His creation. 

I think that the church has for so long bought into the hidden belief that Christ's sacrifice was just almost enough to take away our sin. Maybe enough to let us go to heaven and get past our sin as a whole, but enough to take away our need to punish ourselves in guilt for our daily sin??? Never! I mean, we deserve to remain in guilt don't we?? No, not as his children we don't. How have we lost sight of His overwhelming love for us so far as to assume that He would EVER want us to remain in shame that would hinder our souls from being free in Him??

I think that this is a lie that satan (he doesn't deserve a capital S in his name) has been using in the church for too long. As "good Christians", we too easily fall into the trap of punishing ourselves for our sins, which ends up with us building walls between ourselves and Jesus as we try make ourselves righteous in his sight. Why don't we instead focus on being passionate lovers of Jesus and allow him to purge us of our shortcomings and draw us closer to Him? He has already made us righteous. 

Remember? 

IT IS FINISHED.