All of the excuses are defeated …

The Monday after Easter Sunday is a day of dealing with being on an extended spiritual high. We’ve been moved afresh with the level of sacrifice Jesus was willing to pay on our behalf, and awed at His bearing our sins and defeating death.

Sin and death are defeated!

And so are our excuses.

With Jesus paying for our sins and overcoming death, there are no excuses for any of us to not fully surrender our lives to Jesus and, through the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, live holy and obedient lives to the glory of God.

Take it from someone who experienced all of that firsthand – the Apostle Peter.

Before the cross, the resurrection, and receiving the Holy Spirit, Peter was an inconsistent disciple. In one instance he could proclaim with boldness that Jesus was the Messiah (Mt. 16:13-19), and yet on the night Jesus was betrayed he would deny Him three times.

But then something changed.

Peter would never again be the same after the same power that raised Jesus from the dead came to live in him in the form of the Holy Spirit, inspiring the apostle to write:

“So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, ‘You must be holy because I am holy,'” 1 Peter 1:13-16.

After the resurrection and receiving the Holy Spirit, Peter still wasn’t perfect. For example there was a time the Apostle Paul had to rebuke Peter for his behavior (Gal. 2:11-16), but he became consistent in his followership of Christ and in his faithfulness and steadfastness as a Christian. Peter would go on to be crucified for his faith rather than ever again deny His Lord.

So with our sins paid for, death defeated, and the gift of the Holy Spirit to enable and empower us to live obedient and holy lives, all excuses for not doing so are also defeated. There remains no more excuse, but instead a new calling to ambassdorship:

“And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!'” 2 Corinthians 5:18-20.

Which are you doing: living a life of excuses, or answering the call to ambassadorship?

Scotty