Today ...

The living must die so the dying can live. Then our lives are not futile, our failures are not fatal and our deaths are not final.

"It is finished" is not the concluding statement about a wicked and unjust crucifixion spoken by someone who has been beaten or who is giving up. No, "it is finished" is a cry of triumph, that what was planned by God from the foundations of the earth, has at last been put into motion. The name of that plan? Grace. A completely divine invention, a commodity only God owns and controls so that we won't warp it, mask it, market it, sell shares in it. So that when it comes to us, in big and small ways over and over and over again, we never tire of how it makes us feel or what it does for our lives. And because we can never repay it, our best posture is to receive it humbly and stand in awe that God even bothered with us at all.

O the wondrous cross, bids me come and die and find that I may truly live, O the wondrous cross, all who gather here by grace draw near and bless your name. Chris Tomlin