Faithful Fridays ~ Boldly I Approach.

Hi, everyone, and Happy Friday!  :)  What are you guys up to this week?  My little cousin is on spring break, so she's visiting with us.  :)




Faithful Fridays is a weekly linky party hosted on my blog. I made it so that Christians could have one special day out of the week (Friday) to share something from their Christian walk on their blog. If you'd like to participate, write your post, grab the button from the Faithful Fridays page on my blog (so that it will link back here), and come link up at the bottom of this post! :)
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He struggled under the pain that threatened to make his knees buckle under.  But he couldn't fall under the weight; no, he had something to fight for.  His love was too much, too important, to give up and give in.  He would fight for her. 
He looked up, sweat rolling down his forehead and stinging his eyes, to see a whole mass crowd of people jeering at him, calling out his name, mocking him in every way they knew how.  They had stripped him of everything; dignity, self-defense, pride, even most of the clothes on his back.  A little voice inside him whispered, "Give up.  It's not worth it."  He was human, after all.  But a greater will within him cried out, "No!  She is worth it!"  
His love was unbreakable.  
Then the remainder of those clothes were ripped to shreds as they led him off and began to beat him.  Mercilessly.  He stood the pain as long as he could, until he collapsed on the ground, but they didn't stop there.  He could barely see anything, barely make anything out.  There was just the pain, on the outside and the inside.  Part of him felt as if God Himself had forsaken him.  He had never before in his life felt so lonely and abandoned into darkness.  But the blows kept coming, and he didn't feel like they'd ever stop.
But she's worth it, he still knew inside.  So he didn't completely give up.  
A rough voice ordered him up, and somehow, his love in mind, he did it.  It was the power of that love for her, the intensity of it, that drove him on.  
She had never done anything to earn or deserve his love.  She had, in fact, hurt him countless times.  She wasn't there for him now.  But he was still going to fight for her.  He would take all this pain for her, gladly, if it meant she would have life.  If she would be saved.  
He was driven out again from the dank, sullen darkness into the blindingly bright sunshine, into the crowd again.  They were yelling louder now, cursing his name and the things he had stood for.  It hurt.  But he kept on.  His mother's face flashed in and out of the crowd, pain carved deep into her eyes.  His friends were nowhere to be found.  Alone.  
Those who had him imprisoned pushed him through the crowd, letting him be spat on, kicked, hit, and abused in every way.  Things were thrown at him.  People trampled him.  He was shoved roughly past the crowd, their taunts roaring painfully in his ears, on and on down a rough path.  He didn't think he could make it; he wanted to keep pushing for his love, but so often he stumbled.  Still, they kept pushing him down the path, lonely now.  He could feel the end coming.  He was all the way outside the city now, all on his own, completely forsaken.  They cast him down on the ground, and as the last blow came to fall, his only thought was: 

She was worth it.      -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That wasn't a he.  That was Him.  Jesus.  And that wasn't just a her.  That was us.  You.  Me.  That was what He took on for us--willingly, freely.  His love is unique because it isn't just like the most beautiful, deep, intense kind of love we can imagine between two lovers (although the Bible does compare it to that)--it's also the love of a mighty, majestic God, who is so over us, but who chooses to reach down to our level, scoop us up in the big arms of His tender, but strong, love, and cover us in mercy and forgiveness.  It's a sovereign King who chooses to humble Himself, even to disgrace, to love a bunch of people who didn't want Him at all at first, and who certainly don't deserve Him.   

He could've called down His angel armies to strike His oppressors and been taken off that cross.  He could've never let Himself be arrested.  He could have resisted.  He could've lived His life on earth in peaceful seclusion, never bothering to teach any of the people or heal them or call them out to life.  He could have never come at all--He could have never left His perfect joy and peace with the Father in Heaven.
But He did.  He took on the lowest form; He underwent brutality and torture and humiliation, and literally, being forsaken by God, and then death.  Simply because He loved us.  He wanted to set us free, to save us.  He wanted to give us life.  He wanted to give us power over all that ugly stuff in us and in the world. 
But don't you dare think for a moment that that was where He stopped, because it wasn't.  He not only took on death and sin and rebellion against God, past, present, and future, but He conquered it.  And because of that, we also are conquerors.  

Oh, Your resurrection power Burns like fire in my heart When waters rise, I lift my eyes unto Your throne We are more than conquerors through Christ You have overcome this world, this life We will not bow to sin or to shame We are defiant in Your name You are the fire that cannot be tamed You are the power in our veins Our Lord, our God, our Conqueror!   -More than Conquerors, Rend Collective
   Never underestimate Jesus' love for you and what it means to you.  Ever.  Because if it was strong enough to take on the worst kind of pain, inside and out, and being forsaken by God--and not only that, but to conquer sin and death and pain, then it's strong enough to get you through anything.  Because we didn't do a single thing to deserve that kind of love, or earn it.  That wouldn't even be possible, no matter how hard we tried.  His love is amazing because we didn't deserve it, and yet it's so great and intensive and passionate for us.  

"This is the kind of love we are talking about--not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God." -1 John 4:10

"Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him. Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!"

-Romans 5:6-11

Because of this, we can come to God with anything--our anger toward others and even toward Him, our deepest disappointments, our hardest failures, our heaviest and darkest doubts, our sins, our wrestling, our questions--and He won't hold any of it against us.  

"So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God.  There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most."

-Hebrews 4:16

We can boldly approach the throne of God with anything and everything, at any time in our lives, no matter what condition we're in, because He already paid the price.  We can come broken, with doubts, and failures, and wrestling.  We can receive mercy, and grace, to help us when we need it the most.  Thank you, Jesus.  
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God bless you guys and have a great weekend!  :) Joy :)