Imagine with me, meeting a homeless man or woman. Matted, filthy hair covers their head. Lice are crawling through it and onto their forehead. The odour of feces and urine emanates from their tattered clothing. Open, oozing sores are evident on their grime-covered skin and you are sure they carry something contagious. Flies crawl across their face and they seem oblivious to them. Hopelessness and great sorrow fill their eyes.

Slowly, you see your hand rise, intending to rest it on their shoulder. Horror fills you at the thought of touching them because you know all that contaminates them will crawl onto you. Yet the compassion in your heart for them drives your hand forward, and as your hand rests there, you feel all the lice, germs, and filth cover you. You look at the homeless one before you, and they have become clean, tidy, and newly clothed, fully restored to their former healthy self, smiling.

This is a picture of what Christ has done, for all who believe on His name and accept Him as their Lord and Saviour.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ prayed not to have to touch us and take on all our filth, contagions and infestations, our sins. He struggled to the point of sweating drops of blood. This Holy One had never sinned or had it touch Him. He was God, who cannot look on sin, dwelling in human flesh. But through the mystery of the Incarnation, His human will struggled with the Father’s will. He understood the weight, the horror, the darkness of the soul within all people that He would have to carry within Him.

The magnitude of it is beyond us. It boggles the mind! I can barely stand the weight of my own. How do we feel when confronted with one aspect of our sin? The frustration, despondency, tiredness, and hopelessness that descends on us. Then the comparison game begins. I will never be as smart, talented, energetic, wise, loved, successful, or holy enough as so and so. I may as well give up. How can God use a failure like me? Yet, like Christ, we are to battle against our will and choose the Father’s will.

Because He chose the Father’s will over His own, took on all our sins and died to pay the price for them, we stand before God fully restored. Clean, robed in white and radiant, like a bride before her Bridegroom.

The Enemy lost the fight that day at Calvary, but he is still in the battle wanting to destroy and hamper the faith and trust of those who follow Christ. We can’t curl up in a ball and give up. Christ paid too much for that!

When we feel the weight of our sin after we stumble, we need to remember the cross and pray to the Holy Spirit within us. We seek His power for strength and to help us stand up, straighten our crown and go forward.

In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,

nor be weary when reproved by him.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

and chastises every son whom he receives.”

Hebrews 12:4-5 ESV

Sisters, we are new creations, restored by the Lord’s nail-scarred hand on our shoulders. But we are called to continue the battle against sin in our lives, to work out our salvation (Philippians 2:12), through the power of the Holy Spirit. We may stumble, but we don’t have to fall.

Let’s focus our eyes on Christ, not ourselves or others, and the goal He has set before us. Sweet friends, we are the loved and chosen daughters of the King of Kings. Don’t give in or give up. Let us look into the eyes of our Elder Brother, call on the Holy Spirit and step forward in confidence and trust in His hand that holds us fast.

Be well!

Patricia