Imagine, you are standing in a courtroom, guilty on every charge.  You know the sentence is going to be a lengthy amount of time in prison.  So you hear the verdict, the judge announces “paid in full.”  The entire record is stamped acquitted and then shredded.  Yet, instead of being grateful and living like a free man you keep trying to argue with the judge, “But I still feel guilty, please let me work this off.”  But the judge gently reminds you of the final verdict and that this case is closed, and will never be reopened. So, you go home and begin to start your new life but just in case, you sign up for some community service work and clock in about forty hours a week.  You report to the local precinct all of your hours working at the shelter.  The officer looks at you bewildered because you are not required to do anything but every week you keep walking with a limp thinking you’re still carrying that ankle bracelet that really isn’t there.  But isn’t that sometimes how we as believers live our lives?  Instead of just accepting the final verdict that we are truly free and fully forgiven we live our lives as if this is partially true.  Yes God did His part but we still have to do our part.  We tend to sometimes view God more like our parole officer checking on us to see if we are truly sorry for what we’ve done by working off our sentence.  But Hebrews 10:12-14 tells us a different story.  “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God…For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”  The cross was not a partial payment; it was a finished work.  Jesus did not cover some of your sins and leave the rest for you to manage; He dealt with all of them-past, present, and future-in one decisive act.  This means you never again approach God as a debtor, only as a child.  You never come to Him trying to get clean; you come because you have been cleansed.  You do not move in and out of fellowship every time you fail; you live in a permanent state of reconciliation because of Christ.  When you sin, you are not re-crucifying Christ or stepping outside of His blood; you are forgetting who you already are in Him.  The answer is not to climb back into God’s favor, but to remember that you never left it. 

Today, instead of examining yourself to see how badly you’ve failed, look at Jesus to see how perfectly He succeeded. Your standing with God is not measured by how focused your prayers were this week, how pure your thoughts have been, how strong your spiritual disciplines feel.  Your standing is measured only by the perfection of Jesus’s sacrifice and His unchanging righteousness credited to you.  You are not “on probation” with God; you are sealed, embraced, and delighted in. 

Let your heart exhale.  The pressure to make yourself acceptable is over.  Put down your legal defense and walk out of the courtroom free.  

Prayer 

Lord Jesus,

Thank you that your cross was enough for all my sin, for all my life.  Thank you that I stand before the Father not in my performance but in your perfection.  Teach my heart to rest in Your finished work, to see myself as You see me-clean, loved, righteous, and secure.  Let this grace reshape my desires and my choices, not because I fear losing You, but because I am sure I never will. 

Amen