A little over a year ago, our daughter married a wonderful young man. They chose to have a small ceremony with mainly family in attendance. We celebrated with them and enjoyed watching their beaming faces during the reception.
Couples prepare far in advance for their wedding day, choosing the church, the decorations, the bridal gown and tuxedo, the attendants, the reception food, etc. This takes months of preparation and a hefty chunk of change for most people. When the big day arrives, they say their vows, and voila! They are now married!
But imagine waking up soon after the honeymoon, your spouse is on a business trip, and you’re all alone. To make things worse, you had an argument and were at odds upon parting. Regret, loneliness, and uncertainty fill your mind; things shouldn’t be this way! You don’t feel married. You make a phone call: “Honey, these doubts are troubling me . . . Are you sure we’re really and truly married?” Anxiously, you start looking for a different dress. You find a date on the calendar and order new wedding invitations. You choose a better cake. Does how you feel undo what happened at the wedding? Is a second wedding the solution? Of course not! All it takes is one legal exchange and one document. After the wedding, the couple, the witnesses, and the officiant sign the marriage license and you are legally married. Period.
Sometimes as Christians we can look at our imperfect behavior and not feel like we’re really saved. Yet Jesus shed His blood to completely and forever cleanse us of our sin—the only condition being that we believe His sacrifice was enough. He only needed to die once to purchase our salvation.
Hebrews 10:12 explains, but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God. Jesus does not have to die over and over again every time we sin. For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit (I Peter 3:18).
Thank God we now have the perfect sacrifice, the only one accepted by God. John the Baptist said of Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). By His death and resurrection, Jesus ushered in a new covenant, a new legal document with new conditions.
If we choose God’s solution, our emotions have no authority in the matter. We may blow it. We may struggle with sin in a certain area of behavior. We may feel down and defeated. But because the New Covenant is based on what Christ accomplished rather than on what we can accomplish, God sees us as righteous, day in and day out. Christ’s job was to defeat sin. Our job is to believe His one-time sacrifice was enough!
A beautiful reminder!