I am that man...

I’m building a small retaining wall. Even with a large heavy hammer and strong arms, some of the harder boards take some diligent focused effort to hammer the nails in place. I had a moment while I was forcefully pounding these nails into the timbers where I thought about Jesus being nailed to the cross. I was sickened thinking about how in the same way I was pounding these nails, there was a man who was given an order to nail another man to a similar board with a similar hammer and nail. As I reflected on how terrible the suffering would be to receive the nail, I contemplated what type of man would be willing and able to nail another man down as he screamed in excruciating pain. Was he just so terrified that he would suffer a similar fate if he didn’t follow the orders? Or was he really so evil and filled with demons that he personally enjoyed causing someone else to suffer so? And as soon as I was processing just how terrible and wretched that man must have been I realized freshly that

I am that man.

The reason Jesus was nailed to a tree was because of my sinful, evil, wretched flesh. I am just as much to blame for causing my savior immeasurable suffering and death as the soldiers who whipped Him and pulled out His beard and crammed a crown of thorns on his head and nailed him to a cross and eventually pierced him with a spear. I’m just as guilty and no more deserving of His grace and mercy.

But He is love.

He loves us so much that He was willing to endure more suffering than we can imagine so that we would be set free from the bondage we were born into. His death and resurrection conquered sin and death and made a way for us to be washed clean and redeemed so that eventually when we finish this race we will be welcomed into his warm loving arms and embraced by his nail pierced hands. We will spend eternity with Him in perfect communion and there will be no more pain and no more death and no more wickedness.

If you don’t yet know in your heart that the end of this age is coming soon then I’m not sure what hole you’ve been living in or which rock you’ve been hiding under. Soon enough the antichrist will be revealed and the beast system will take over fully. We are about to be hated and despised and tortured and killed by this world because they hate Jesus and He is inside us. Consider it pure joy! What an honor to endure hardship and tribulation for the namesake of God Almighty, the only one good, the only one perfect, the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the word made flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth! The suffering we will endure will be very short lived and the glory we will share will be for eternity. So take heart and be courageous. Evil men will do what evil men do. My God still sits on the throne and He already walked the road ahead of me. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. We can do all things through Him including surviving the next few years or standing courageously and declaring your testimony to your own death sentence. His grace is and always will be sufficient. So be strong and courageous. Neither be afraid nor dismayed for the Lord your God is with you, wherever you go. Even today on a dirty construction site.

Time is short. Repent. Make Jesus your Lord while there is still time.