Black Friday

 

 

 

Yesterday was, depending upon your viewpoint, either celebrated as a day of bargain shopping, endured as a day of hoping to find a bargain AND purchase it without mortal injury to your person or enjoyed as a day of relaxation after the large gatherings of Thanksgiving and enjoying the leftovers of said gatherings. 

 

Black Friday, so named because it is supposedly the day during which retail businesses' profits finally flip over into the black side of the ledger, finally actually show a profit for the year.  Frankly, I'm not convinced of that, but I digress.

 

For me, it was actually neither.  I didn't celebrate anything, I wasn't about to endure the frenzy at the stores and I didn't have leftovers.  Instead, I passed my day reflecting on how we can go from being so "thankful" and "family-centric" during the earlier hours of the day to the hoopla and frenzy of all that shopping before the day is even over.

 

We must be, in some manner, mentally incapacitated.  How do we reconcile one extreme with the other, and all within a 24-hour period of time?  It seems somehow wrong to me.  But, I'm no judge.

 

Of this one fact I am sure, as the image depicts, there was a Black Friday when the balances of eternity hung between heaven and earth.  The God of the universe looked down from heaven as His Son hung on a cross, suffering an horrific death.  A sacrifice so freely made that it boggles one's mind to imagine that this man would actually go through with it.

 

Yet there he hung, this God-Man who had the power and authority to call the angelic armies of heaven to his rescue.  He did not.  He hung there, suffering, bleeding and dying for each and every human being from Adam to the last individual to be born before eternity begins.  As surely as he did it for all humanity, he would have as willingly done so for any one of us.  Just one.........

 

From all human perspective it was, indeed, a Black Friday.  Yet from the heavenly perspective, it was the fulfillment of every promise God had ever made to humankind.  That Black Friday changed everything.  Did it change anything for you?  I pray it did.  If it has not, it still can.  You need only to invite that man who died on that cross to reside within your heart, to forgive your sin and empower you to walk with Him.

 

Just something to reflect on......

 

 

“For God loved the world so much

that he gave his one and only Son,

so that everyone who believes in him

will not perish but have eternal life.

God sent his Son into the world

not to judge the world,

but to save the world through him.

“There is no judgment against anyone

who believes in him.

But anyone who does not believe

in him has already been judged

for not believing

in God’s one and only Son.

And the judgment is based on this fact:

God’s light came into the world,

but people loved the darkness

more than the light,

for their actions were evil.

All who do evil hate the light

and refuse to go near it

for fear their sins will be exposed.

But those who do what is right

come to the light

so others can see

that they are doing what God wants.”

 

John 3: 16-21   (NLT)