{"id":345,"date":"2014-04-17T10:41:04","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T10:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parkwood.org\/blog\/?p=345"},"modified":"2015-03-03T18:44:37","modified_gmt":"2015-03-03T18:44:37","slug":"an-inconvenient-faith-38","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/an-inconvenient-faith-38\/","title":{"rendered":"An Inconvenient Faith (38)"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but found none.\u00a0 They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.”<\/em> (Psalm 69:20, 21)<\/p>\n

“Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’\u00a0 A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.\u00a0 When He had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’\u00a0 With that, He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.”<\/em> (John 19:28-30)<\/p>\n

What a wondrous declaration!\u00a0 There is nothing else left to do.\u00a0 It is done!\u00a0 Mission accomplished!\u00a0 There is a certain satisfaction that comes when we finish a task.\u00a0 There is relief and joy when we have washed the last dish, folded the last towel or ran the last lap.\u00a0 The Scripture above tells us that Jesus knew when He was hanging on the cross that this was the “home stretch”.\u00a0 It says that “all was now completed”.\u00a0 There is another Scripture fulfilled as Jesus expresses His thirst and they give Him vinegar to drink…now He can die.\u00a0 Nothing left undone.\u00a0 Even a small Messianic prophesy from Psalm 69.\u00a0 Every detail…no loose ends.<\/p>\n

God had been weaving the threads of the tapestry of our salvation from the very beginning.\u00a0 For thousands of years He had spoken of this moment through the Prophets.\u00a0 He had laid out a detailed description of the Messiah and His mission and now it was finished.\u00a0 God always finishes what He starts and He covers all the bases.\u00a0 What does that mean for us?<\/p>\n

First, it means there is nothing left for you to do…it is finished.\u00a0 Jesus has done all the work for your salvation and you only need to accept it as your own.\u00a0 Paul said,<\/p>\n

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.\u00a0 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”<\/em> (Ephesians 2:8-10)<\/p>\n

Second, God will continue the work that He has begun in you (your salvation) by empowering you to do the Kingdom work that we were created to do.\u00a0 So, we can do nothing to earn our salvation because Jesus has finished that work but, through our faith we can fulfill God’s plan for us.<\/p>\n

Today commemorates the last supper of Jesus with His disciples.\u00a0 Jesus used this meal to be a reminder of what He was about to do.\u00a0 “This is my body…this is My blood”.\u00a0 He gave it all up for you.\u00a0 He didn’t hold anything back and didn’t leave anything undone so that…<\/p>\n

“Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”<\/em> (Romans 10:13)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but found none.\u00a0 They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.” (Psalm 69:20, 21) “Later, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-an-inconvenient-faith-2014-lenten-blog","category-all_posts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":349,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions\/349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}