Today in paradise!

Whats worse openly sinning to the point of glorifying your sin before Gods very face, or Covering up all your wrong doings? As humans we tend to do one of those two no matter who we are or what we stand for, Sin at some point in our lives has conquered us, leaving us to a place where we either sin without limit or we sin but cover our tracks as if we are hiding the truth from God. In a previous blog I wrote about the two criminals hanging on the cross with Jesus. You’ve got the first criminal  who still can’t grasp that he deserve the punishment for his sins. He’s up on the cross almost outwardly challenging Jesus, Like hey if your God then why can’t you get us out of here? Come on God use your powers, better yet prove to me that You are who you claim to be. Openly sinning,testing and challenging God right before his very face. There is no repentance in this man, he wants out of his punishment but doesn’t wanna own up to his mess. How many of us can relate to this? We want out of the mess we want out of the chaos but I’m too prideful to admit that this was my fault. We go back to the old habits the old ways and we say come on God, if your God then fix this! I don’t want this anymore. New flash you deserve this, but we act as if God owes us. What as any of us ever done to cause God to owe us? We’ve all been there, we’ve all tried this route to getting our way without the realness of reality, But see Jesus is silent he doesn’t answer to this man. I believe Jesus didn’t respond because everything the man wanted and was asking of him, Jesus was in pursuit of doing. He didn’t owe this man anything but he was laying down his life for him and all of humanity. You see even though this man never repented or even believed, Jesus still shed his blood for him. My favorite part to this story is when the other criminal begins to speak He says, ” We are getting what we deserve.” This man has just realized that everything he has done has lead to this punishment and he deserve it! He has tapped into a supernatural understanding that this is my fault, I am to blame. He understands that this is justice, and all the bad that is coming his way he deserves. What comes next is a beautiful picture of grace, the criminal says, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom?” There is no assurance in his question, He isn’t asking as if he knows the answer because what he knows is that he deserves rejection. So he saying could you? Like would you even remember me?  He’s in such a hopeless place in this moment he knows he has nothing to offer, nothing to bring to the table but a question (Repentances.) Jesus answers so beautifully,  “Today you will be with me in paradise.” NOT when you get you get yourself together, Jesus doesn’t say when you’ve prayed a few times and can resite scripture then you can come into my kingdom. He says TODAY just as you are right now, you will be with me in paradise! Folks it doesn’t get any better than that, you won’t find love like that anywhere or any other religion or form of gods. Jesus is the price paid in full for our punishment. Yet we continue to run back to the cross and nail ourselves to the punishments, allowing our sins to be the factor of definitions. Jesus already said it is finished, so quit trying to be the saving grace of your life. We don’t need to keep being saved over and over again. It is finished we ARE saved. So I encourage you today to walk in paradise that has been so freely given to us.

TheRealRa3