Nail Your Sins to the Cross
I have seen this several times now where a church or organization takes a cross and has people write down their sins or prayers and take a nail and nail them to the cross. Actually it is a really cool thing to do because it shows to some extend that we understand that Jesus when He went to the cross took our sins, our pains, our tears, our problems, our sickness, our pride, our unforgiveness, our prejudices, and everything else that hurts us in any way to the cross. You could write down anything you are going through and when Jesus was nailed to the cross that situation and problems was nailed there.
Now God has given us such a great example. The cross pretty much says it all. Anything we go through He took our punishments, our sins, our sicknesses and He willingly went to the cross so that we could live. The curse was broken and freedom came to us. It was by His precious blood and no one else’s. You can’t, no matter what you do, pay the price for your sins. He did it once and for all. Your job is to believe it and now live for Him.
Do you hear from God. Some hear through reading, some through listening, some through circumstances and words from others, but God also talks directly to us personally. He doesn’t speak to each of us the same but He speaks. I think for some it is a matter of how much of a relationship you are having if you ever hear His voice out loud. I have a few times audibly heard his voice and once was given the opportunity of hearing what would be a battle for my soul. I won’t go into detail here but I will saw it was an awesome experience and I know beyond a doubt that God is real and He loves me and cares about everything in my life.
Rage Against the Enemy
There is a woman in the Bible named Jael. It took a lot of guts to do what she did and most all of us would not do this. Sometimes, we as humans do hear God plainly as to what to do, or we see a vision that explains what someone did or what we should do or understand. Jael was the wife of a friend to King Jabin of Canaan. This guy ruled over the People of Israel, until one day God told Deborah to rally against his oppressive power. Battles were waged, and Sisera, the king’s commander, lost his army. In search of safety, the commander enters Jael’s home. Bad idea!
He said to her, “Please, a little water. I’m thirsty.”
She opened a bottle of milk, gave him a drink, and then covered him up again.
He then said, “Stand at the tent flap. If anyone comes by and asks you, ‘Is there anyone here?’ tell him, ‘No, not a soul.’”
Then while he was fast asleep from exhaustion, Jael, wife of Heber, took a tent peg and hammer, tiptoed toward him, and drove the tent peg through his temple and all the way into the ground. He convulsed and died. (Judges 4:19-21, The Message) “Murder”! Why? Why in the world would she do this. Jael had the courage to hammer that spike into his head. How gruesome a scene it must have been. I can’t even imagine doing this so at times when we read some of the things in the Bible and God makes them clear to us it can be hard to understand.
But know this that God knows the beginning and the end and every detail of everyone’s life. Nothing is in the Bible to take up space. So what does it mean or how do we need to understand it. For me it took me to another place in the Bible because if we want to know the truth of God’s word we need to ask how does what this woman did apply to us? What do we get from her story? I want to ask you for a moment to go to the cross and just for a moment instead of Jesus being on the cross…close your eyes and see you on that cross. See the punishment you would have endured, the pain, the skin ripped off your body, blood dripping down your face, your chest…etc. Picture when the nails were driven into your hands and feet and the pressure of the cross going into the hole and your body in pain on a splintered cross shoved into the ground and your bare skin rubbing against it even in more pain. Can you feel the pain you would have gone through? The only difference is there is nothing you would have done or accomplished on that cross because the only one with precious blood that takes away our sins, our sickness, our pain is Jesus’ blood. Only He could redeem us. Only He could give us eternal life.
The story of Jael and what she did…to me…was like a revelation as to what happened to our Lord. This story…to me…is telling me that everything…nothing left out of my life…needed nailed to the cross so that I can live in the freedom and grace for which my Lord went to the cross to give me/you! All, not some, of our sins and sicknesses were nailed to the cross.
Listen carefully here…when you recognize a sin in your life talk to Jesus and then nail it to the cross and get up and go His way. With each atrocity recalled, nails were deeply implanted into the cross – never to be taken up again.
Hate… (Clank!) Pride… (Clank!) Idols... (Clank!) Greed… (Clank!) Lust… (Clank!) Lies (clank) Stealing (clank) Cheating (clank) Adultery (clank) cheating (clank) drugs (clank) alcohol (clank) abuse (clank) unforgiveness (clank) and whatever else might be the thing that is your sin _______ (clank).
There was finality to nailing my sin to that cross. I felt God’s freedom in that moment, freedom from sins that had clouded my spiritual walk for years. You can be free as well. Free to know that Jesus paid for all you did, do, and will do. Your job is loving Him, believing in Him, changing…God will help you change.
Hammer Away!
As I held my sin spikes, wanting them to never leave that place of surrender, I felt Jesus speak another word of Truth to my heart. “I’m not hanging there anymore. You will not hurt me. My suffering is already complete. Drive your sin in the timber of my sacrifice. Do not hold back. Do not hold onto your sin. You will not hurt me.” YOU CAN’T HURT JESUS BY NAILING THE YOUR SINS TO HIS CROSS. HE ALREADY PAID THE ENTIRE PRICE. This, however, does not give you any right to go on sinning. Leave your sins at the cross.
DO YOU SEE THE SACRIFICE HE MADE? DO YOU? YOU ARE FREE BY THE GRACE OF GOD AND NOT ONE THING YOU DID OR WILL DO.
So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:28, NIV)
I’m learning that He hurts more if I hold onto it than if I just openly show Him my weakness. The fact is that we waste Jesus blood by not releasing our sin and accepting God’s full forgiveness. Let your sins go.
Jael nailed God’s enemy to the floor, and we can do the same. As we commit to our repentance and nail our sin to the completed cross, we are fulfilling God’s will in two ways. First, we are defeating God’s enemy -- sin. Secondly, we are being redeemed to God through Jesus’ sacrifice.
You can make you a cross in your own home. You can put a picture of a cross in a journal and each time you sin go post on it. It works so much better with nailing it to the cross though. You can put people’s names on the cross that you are praying for because all they go through as well…Jesus paid that price as well. Take your marriage there, your kids there, sickness there, friends there…and even your enemies there and pray that God will save them, heal them, and help them all.
He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. (Romans 4:25, NIV)
Take Control of Your Sin
Unless we turn against our sin, it will lord over us.
Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” (John 8:34, NIV)
We must learn to detest sin as much as He does. It’s hard, I know. God knows. Certain sins cause each of us to stumble. But, God is faithful. He has a way out for me – and you. The first step we must take is to confess our sin, and then we can start working on changing how we react to life in a way that is honoring to God.
[Jesus] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. (I Peter 2:24a, NIV)
Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can walk this life blameless. As we take that step lean into His grace, God forgets about the warrant against us and leaves it hanging on the cross.
God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:13b-14, NIV)
It's finished! (Let it finally be finished for you as well)
I have seen this several times now where a church or organization takes a cross and has people write down their sins or prayers and take a nail and nail them to the cross. Actually it is a really cool thing to do because it shows to some extend that we understand that Jesus when He went to the cross took our sins, our pains, our tears, our problems, our sickness, our pride, our unforgiveness, our prejudices, and everything else that hurts us in any way to the cross. You could write down anything you are going through and when Jesus was nailed to the cross that situation and problems was nailed there.
Now God has given us such a great example. The cross pretty much says it all. Anything we go through He took our punishments, our sins, our sicknesses and He willingly went to the cross so that we could live. The curse was broken and freedom came to us. It was by His precious blood and no one else’s. You can’t, no matter what you do, pay the price for your sins. He did it once and for all. Your job is to believe it and now live for Him.
Do you hear from God. Some hear through reading, some through listening, some through circumstances and words from others, but God also talks directly to us personally. He doesn’t speak to each of us the same but He speaks. I think for some it is a matter of how much of a relationship you are having if you ever hear His voice out loud. I have a few times audibly heard his voice and once was given the opportunity of hearing what would be a battle for my soul. I won’t go into detail here but I will saw it was an awesome experience and I know beyond a doubt that God is real and He loves me and cares about everything in my life.
Rage Against the Enemy
There is a woman in the Bible named Jael. It took a lot of guts to do what she did and most all of us would not do this. Sometimes, we as humans do hear God plainly as to what to do, or we see a vision that explains what someone did or what we should do or understand. Jael was the wife of a friend to King Jabin of Canaan. This guy ruled over the People of Israel, until one day God told Deborah to rally against his oppressive power. Battles were waged, and Sisera, the king’s commander, lost his army. In search of safety, the commander enters Jael’s home. Bad idea!
He said to her, “Please, a little water. I’m thirsty.”
She opened a bottle of milk, gave him a drink, and then covered him up again.
He then said, “Stand at the tent flap. If anyone comes by and asks you, ‘Is there anyone here?’ tell him, ‘No, not a soul.’”
Then while he was fast asleep from exhaustion, Jael, wife of Heber, took a tent peg and hammer, tiptoed toward him, and drove the tent peg through his temple and all the way into the ground. He convulsed and died. (Judges 4:19-21, The Message) “Murder”! Why? Why in the world would she do this. Jael had the courage to hammer that spike into his head. How gruesome a scene it must have been. I can’t even imagine doing this so at times when we read some of the things in the Bible and God makes them clear to us it can be hard to understand.
But know this that God knows the beginning and the end and every detail of everyone’s life. Nothing is in the Bible to take up space. So what does it mean or how do we need to understand it. For me it took me to another place in the Bible because if we want to know the truth of God’s word we need to ask how does what this woman did apply to us? What do we get from her story? I want to ask you for a moment to go to the cross and just for a moment instead of Jesus being on the cross…close your eyes and see you on that cross. See the punishment you would have endured, the pain, the skin ripped off your body, blood dripping down your face, your chest…etc. Picture when the nails were driven into your hands and feet and the pressure of the cross going into the hole and your body in pain on a splintered cross shoved into the ground and your bare skin rubbing against it even in more pain. Can you feel the pain you would have gone through? The only difference is there is nothing you would have done or accomplished on that cross because the only one with precious blood that takes away our sins, our sickness, our pain is Jesus’ blood. Only He could redeem us. Only He could give us eternal life.
The story of Jael and what she did…to me…was like a revelation as to what happened to our Lord. This story…to me…is telling me that everything…nothing left out of my life…needed nailed to the cross so that I can live in the freedom and grace for which my Lord went to the cross to give me/you! All, not some, of our sins and sicknesses were nailed to the cross.
Listen carefully here…when you recognize a sin in your life talk to Jesus and then nail it to the cross and get up and go His way. With each atrocity recalled, nails were deeply implanted into the cross – never to be taken up again.
Hate… (Clank!) Pride… (Clank!) Idols... (Clank!) Greed… (Clank!) Lust… (Clank!) Lies (clank) Stealing (clank) Cheating (clank) Adultery (clank) cheating (clank) drugs (clank) alcohol (clank) abuse (clank) unforgiveness (clank) and whatever else might be the thing that is your sin _______ (clank).
There was finality to nailing my sin to that cross. I felt God’s freedom in that moment, freedom from sins that had clouded my spiritual walk for years. You can be free as well. Free to know that Jesus paid for all you did, do, and will do. Your job is loving Him, believing in Him, changing…God will help you change.
Hammer Away!
As I held my sin spikes, wanting them to never leave that place of surrender, I felt Jesus speak another word of Truth to my heart. “I’m not hanging there anymore. You will not hurt me. My suffering is already complete. Drive your sin in the timber of my sacrifice. Do not hold back. Do not hold onto your sin. You will not hurt me.” YOU CAN’T HURT JESUS BY NAILING THE YOUR SINS TO HIS CROSS. HE ALREADY PAID THE ENTIRE PRICE. This, however, does not give you any right to go on sinning. Leave your sins at the cross.
DO YOU SEE THE SACRIFICE HE MADE? DO YOU? YOU ARE FREE BY THE GRACE OF GOD AND NOT ONE THING YOU DID OR WILL DO.
So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:28, NIV)
I’m learning that He hurts more if I hold onto it than if I just openly show Him my weakness. The fact is that we waste Jesus blood by not releasing our sin and accepting God’s full forgiveness. Let your sins go.
Jael nailed God’s enemy to the floor, and we can do the same. As we commit to our repentance and nail our sin to the completed cross, we are fulfilling God’s will in two ways. First, we are defeating God’s enemy -- sin. Secondly, we are being redeemed to God through Jesus’ sacrifice.
You can make you a cross in your own home. You can put a picture of a cross in a journal and each time you sin go post on it. It works so much better with nailing it to the cross though. You can put people’s names on the cross that you are praying for because all they go through as well…Jesus paid that price as well. Take your marriage there, your kids there, sickness there, friends there…and even your enemies there and pray that God will save them, heal them, and help them all.
He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. (Romans 4:25, NIV)
Take Control of Your Sin
Unless we turn against our sin, it will lord over us.
Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” (John 8:34, NIV)
We must learn to detest sin as much as He does. It’s hard, I know. God knows. Certain sins cause each of us to stumble. But, God is faithful. He has a way out for me – and you. The first step we must take is to confess our sin, and then we can start working on changing how we react to life in a way that is honoring to God.
[Jesus] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. (I Peter 2:24a, NIV)
Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can walk this life blameless. As we take that step lean into His grace, God forgets about the warrant against us and leaves it hanging on the cross.
God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:13b-14, NIV)
It's finished! (Let it finally be finished for you as well)