Sitting in my office this week, I began to reminisce, my mind taking me back to a time when I was employed as a secretary at one of the Correctional Institutions.
Facing a window view from my desk, each week I witnessed the inmates getting off the bus with guards on every side, shackles on their feet, hand cuffs on their hands, and their heads hanging down, as they shuffled their feet towards the door where they would spend up to 2 years locked up in a cell, stripped of all their dignity, only to have to face themselves in that jail cell alone each and every day. I could see the hurt, pain, anger and the sense of hopelessness that was over them. My heart ached for them because I knew somewhere along the way they had lost respect for themselves and value for life itself. If only they knew how much God loved them and wanted to see them free from the heavy burdens they were carrying. The next thought that crossed my mind was the sense that God was saying, "Linda, I love my people, but even the born again believers that say they have accepted me as their Savior, willingly choose every day to pay the penalty for their sins over and over again, even when I have already paid for them. The price is paid for, I paid it on Calvary at the cross once and for all, it is finished. I forgave their sins, I took their infirmities, bore their sickness, took their shame, guilt, and condemnation, and yet they still choose to put themselves back in the penalty box, in their own prison, to punish themselves over and over again". Similar to the inmates, we too have sinned and fallen short of God's best, but if we truly have accepted Jesus Christ and believe that he forgave our sins and cleansed us from all unrighteousness, then we have the choice each day to walk in this freedom OR to walk in the vanity of our own mind and believe the lie that the price Jesus Christ paid wasn't enough for you and me. This song says it all! "He Touched Me". Shackled by a heavy burden, beneath a load of guilt and shame, then the hand of Jesus touched me, and now I am no longer the same. He touched me, He touched Me, and Oh what joy that floods my soul, something happened and now I know He touched me and made me whole. Since I met this blessed Savior, since he cleansed and made me whole I will never cease to praise Him I'll shout it while eternity rolls.
JESUS PAID IT ALL FOLKS! IT IS FINISHED!
