I love my family. Mary is my best friend and my kids are so precious to me. They aren’t perfect, but of course just because I am doesn’t mean everyone can be, right? (cough, cough) And since NONE of us are perfect, there are growth areas we all have to work on.
If you hang around our house very long you will likely hear one of the parents saying that we need to do a job the right way. “Halfway jobs are not acceptable.” “If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well.” Doing something and not doing it with excellence leaves behind a mess for someone else to finish up. So, our goal is to help our kids (and sometimes me too) live a life worthy of the calling we have received (Eph. 4:1), to live with excellence and complete the task God has for us (2 Tim. 4:7).
We are headed into Holy Week. This Sunday we celebrate Palm Sunday when the people of Jerusalem cheered waving palm branches and celebrated Jesus as the King. Just a few days later an equally fervent crowd was screaming, “Crucify him!”
Luke 9:51 says, “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” (Resolutely: determinedly, unwaveringly.) Jesus was purposeful and intentional. Although the task before Him was not a pleasant one, He would complete it. It was a task, if all things were equal, Jesus would have preferred to avoid (“Let this cup pass from me”), but all things were not equal. Our eternity hung in the balance. And Jesus submitted to the Father’s plan and “resolutely” went forward. A halfway job would not have fixed the problem. So, Jesus went forward and did the job right.
I think many times church attenders see Palm Sunday, they experience the celebration. Then, they come back the next Sunday, Easter, and celebrate the resurrection without fully experiencing the loss, hardship and pain that Jesus experience on what we call “Good Friday.” I hope you will take time in the next 8 days to walk that road with Christ. You can do that by reading through the passion accounts in the gospels of Jesus last days (Matthew 21-27; Mark 11-15; Luke 19-23; John 12-19). You could take one Gospel a day, Monday through Thursday leading up to Good Friday. You could attend the Living Lord’s Supper at the Christian Church on Wednesday or Thursday night. I hear it is a phenomenal dramatization. You could attend the community Good Friday service at noon at the Presbyterian Church and the Good Friday service at our church Friday evening at 6:30. All these events are designed to help us grasp the hardship Jesus faced that makes His resurrection so much sweeter.
Jesus did the job right the first time – no halfway measures! I hope you will take time this next week to experience the blessing of knowing the depths of Christ love for you.
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