Good Friday–better called Bloody Friday–is the supreme sacrifice for wicked people such as you and me.
Today we first participated in the REACH SA’s Good Friday Service (Preacher: Glenn Lyons) and then Christ Church Midrand’s service (Preacher: Roydon Frost). It was good to be in church, even though it was “home church”.
Yesterday I asked my neighbour to get me some bread flower, powder milk and sunflower oil so that I could experiment and make some bread in the bread maker. You might laugh, and you have every right to because I could not find the original measuring cups and measuring spoons that measure in ounces. So I used cups and spoons that measure in metric. Although the measurements were very close together, when you consider volume that needs to be accurate, what I measured off for water, oil, flower, powder milk, salt and yeast greatly affected the end result! I watched the bread rise so nicely … and towards the end it collapsed a little with the top sunken down. Why? I checked the manual only to find that if the liquid quantities were too much, this happens! The bread tastes fine but the presentation is not what it should be.
This was bread, we could use it … but if I gave it to you, you might have looked at it somewhat differently because the top of the loaf was sunken. I and maybe you can eat an imperfect load of bread, but when it comes to the ingredients of salvation, they need to be totally perfect.
Think through this logic …
God, Who is perfect, requires those He saves be perfect:
Mt 5:48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
The Old Covenant could never make anyone perfect:
Heb 10:1 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.
But Jesus, through His brutal, sacrificial death can make those who believe perfect, forever:
Heb 10:14 because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
Dear God, thank You so very much for Your perfect gift that makes us perfect through grace by faith. To You be all the glory through Christ our Lord. Amen.