La Vida Nica

A week ago today I was at Miss Ruby’s House with a youth team from a Fort Myers based church. It was an incredible moment to realize that the day was Good Friday, the day which represents the moment when Jesus died a death He didn’t deserve only to beat death and hell three days later, a day we know as Easter, or Resurrection Sunday. When we pray at Miss Ruby’s we usually begin the time by inviting the members of the team to listen to the worship music as we pray for their leaders downstairs. I usually start the music and explain what the time is for, and then make my exit to join the leaders and other members of our prayer team downstairs.

On this particular visit to the prayer house we prayed downstairs mostly for one leader, a sweet friend of mine, and then felt like it was time to go upstairs to begin praying for the team. As I climbed the stairs I couldn’t help but remember the lyrics to a song I had only just heard a few days prior. The song is by an artist named Chance the Rapper, and is titled How Great. (You might remember it from after the Grammys being circulated around social media…) The line that kept running through my head was,

/ The book don’t end with Malachi /

Earlier in the week as I listened to the song, and that line in particular, tears streamed down my face as the Lord reminded me that He didn’t leave the promises undone. All the prophecies and promises that were spoken about in the major and minor prophets, and really since Genesis, He didn’t leave them unmet. And the culmination, the most important moment of history, came in the moment that Jesus rose from the dead, proving He in fact was the Messiah. And forever beating the hold death had over us.

I felt compelled to share with the team in front of me (and now with this online audience) this truth. The Lord didn’t leave the promises undone then, and He won’t now. He rose. Jesus is risen. He is alive. He didn’t send a bunch of prophecies and then leave them undone. And the same is true in your life. He doesn’t make promises He doesn’t keep. Don’t allow attacks on your identity make you question your worth or worthiness. Those words aren’t what Jesus was thinking when He hung on the cross, or when He let out the loud scream in the moment He died. You were worth it. Every second of excruciating pain He experienced as an innocent man, you were worth it.

‘You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’ Romans 5.6-8

The story doesn’t end with Malachi…