The Fearful Goodness of Good Friday

In Hosea, we receive an interesting prophetic picture of the soon-to-be-released goodness of God in redeeming a truly wretched, sin-loving bunch. In fact, this “latter” goodness is presented as something “to be feared.”

We read in Hosea 3:5,

"They shall fear the LORD and His goodness in the latter days" (NKJV).

How can something like God’s goodness bring us to tremble? Simple—it’s absolutely awe-inspiring when considered in context to Who God is and who we are:

• Consider Who the Father is—Holy, perfect, blameless, majestic, glorious.

• Consider who we are—wretched, sinful, at enmity with God, and yes, murderers of the very God Who came to rescue us.

• Finally, consider the glorious exchange Paul describes in Ephesians 2: We were then by nature children of [God's] wrath and heirs of [His] indignation…”But God--so rich is He in His mercy! (Eph 2:3-4, AMP).

There are many roads I could travel down with this topic, but really, I want to focus on the terrifying goodness of God as expressed through His extravagant forgiveness.

Satan has an agenda for us. He seeks to corner believers with his lies and convince us that the sin in our lives alienates us from the love, presence, and yes, forgiveness of God. He wants us to believe that in order to “get right with God again,” we have to… fill in your personal blank. Do penance in our heads. Feel bad enough to become good enough again to be received by God. Or worse of all, travel down this road long enough, ascribing to these lies so often that we ultimately believe: “God doesn’t want me anymore. I’m a screw-up Christian. I just keep missing it.”

Works will not redeem you from this line of thought—revelation will. Period. Lift your eyes to the cross and everything it represents. Satan doesn’t want our minds going there, so let’s really bend him out of shape and BOLDLY behold the cross and the Man, Christ Jesus, nailed front and center. Do you know what His presence there tells me? His forgiveness and mercy are extravagant beyond comprehension.

He died an outcast. His people rejected him. His own disciples abandoned and denied him. Surely even his mother was engaged in mental gymnastics, hoping he would bypass this “cup” of suffering. Let’s face it—God came to the earth to redeem us, and what did we do? We killed him. If that’s not evidence for the total depravity of man, I don’t know what is.

Now here’s the kicker—If you and I literally killed God (which we did with our sin), and He still declared, “forgive them…” do you really think what presently we “deal with” sin-wise now places us beyond His mercy? I think not.

Behold the Man upon the Tree this Good Friday. Look upon the One we pierced—I know it’s confrontational and uncomfortable—but beyond the confrontation with our sin is the most explosive revelation of mercy one could ever receive.

Medicate upon the Savior through this dynamic worship anthem. He truly deserves all of the praise.