Spirit: Path To Praise - The Overflow DevoSample

Ashes (Dara Maclean)

With grace and with fury, salvation secured
He awoke and the stone rolled away
Now we cry “it is finished”

Perhaps the most powerful words ever spoken by human lungs were the words of Jesus as He hung dying on a criminal’s cross, “IT IS FINISHED” (John 19:30). But what was finished? Jesus was speaking of much more than His physical life ending. Jesus was finishing the work He was sent from Heaven, by the Father, to accomplish through the power of His Holy Spirit. Jesus was finishing the work that crushed Him emotionally in the garden the night before His death as He considered the horrific gravity of having experienced the wrath of God for the sins of the world (Matthew 26).

Vital truths of the Christian faith are intrinsically woven into what Jesus was finishing on the cross. Specifically:

• absorbing the wrath (punishment) from God that we deserve for our sins against Him

• experiencing spiritual separation from God so that we could be reunited (restored) with Him

• sacrificing His sinless life for us to receive credit for and taking our lives of sin and shame

The Holy Spirit plays a vital role in sinners like us, believing in Jesus, and receiving the benefits of the finished work He accomplished on our behalf. The Spirit is the One who opens our eyes to the truth about who God is, how our sin has affected our relationship with Him, and what Jesus has done to solve this previously unsolvable problem. The Holy Spirit is the One who gives us faith to believe in Jesus the first time, as well as every step of the way as Christ followers. The Spirit grows our understanding of and faith in Jesus and all that He has accomplished for us.

The Holy Spirit is also the One who allows us to, with confidence, cry out the words, salvation secured!

If it was up to us to keep ourselves believing or following Jesus, we would walk away from Him the same day. It is impossible to lose the security of salvation and love from God found through faith in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit that lives in all Christ followers is our guarantee...the guarantee that we now belong to God our Father and nothing can change that, not even our own sin or wandering. The Holy Spirit has sealed us and will keep our new identity in Christ secure forever and ever. Amen!

Through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit miraculously transforms hell-bound, orphaned sinners into sinless, adopted, beloved sons and daughters of God. Amen!