Easter is a reminder that you were bought with a price. You are not your own, you are Christ’s.
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada with you on Easter Week.
And I’m sure that [like me] you are reflecting on all that this week means. For me, as I think long and deep about what Christ did for me on the cross – for me it means I have got no right to complain. In fact, I have got no rights. I don’t have a right to be angry. There’s no right that guarantees I have the last say. I have no right to insist that things go a certain way, my way. I could go on and on, but you get the point. This week always reminds me – as no other week does – that Easter is a reminder that, as a Christian, I possess no rights. I laid them all at the foot of the cross, agreeing with 1 Corinthians 6 where God tells me: “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So, glorify God in your body.” Now, let me say that again. I was bought with a price, and I am not my own; I am Christ's.
And so, I cannot insist on having things my way. I have no cause, no right to complain if things don’t go the way I want. Because I’m not my own. Jesus owns me now. When he went to the cross; when the Son of God was ripped to shreds, and then hung up to drain like a bloodied piece of meat on a hook, he purchased everything about me, inside and out. And if all this terrible suffering is what Jesus endured to rescue me, I refuse to dignify any sin, any stubborn willfulness; any complaint of mine that impaled him to that cursed tree. I will not coddle anything that helped drive the nails deeper. I relinquished my rights so that I might glorify almighty God through my hardships. And anything less makes light of what Christ did on the cross for you and me.
These are the kinds of thoughts that fill my heart on Easter Week. I take this time to remember that I’m not my own, that I’ve been bought with an infinite price, so costly, so valuable, so sacrificial that it’ll take all of eternity – all of it – to even begin to comprehend the mercy of God toward a dog-nasty sinner like me. And you, too, for you also have been bought with a price, and because of that, you now have the right to enter the great throne room of heaven and put your request before God, all because of what Jesus did on the cross for you. And so, would you join me right now, this Easter Week? Pray with me, would you?
“Oh, Jesus, if it weren’t for your gracious favor toward me, I would be burnt toast. I would be snuffed out in a nanosecond. My sins have earned me a fate worse than death, a ghoulish, hellish existence in a far-flung corner of outer darkness. Isolated, in anguish. That’s what I deserve. Oh, but just look at you and your mercy! Oh, mercy, how is it that you, the Father, and the Holy Spirit all agreed to rescue me from myself?! There’s nothing I’ve done to earn such forgiveness, but in return for your favor, I can – and I will – live a life needing you and thanking you. This Easter, help me to share my redemption story with my relatives, my friends, neighbors who have yet to know your favor. This week may the same Gospel that saved me, save those for whom I pray right now. In Jesus’s Name, Amen.” Friend, thank you for listening to my heart today. And thank you for remembering that you too are not your own and that you have been purchased at an incomprehensible price. Have a spirit-blessed week reflecting on all that Jesus did when he set his face like flint toward the cross.
© Joni and Friends