A 7-Day Easter Devotional From Integrity MusicSample

"Once for All”

(Based on the song "Once for All" by Paul Baloche)

Silence. It is Holy Saturday. All is still. Jesus lies in the grave. The shock of His death is seeping in, making every corner of His followers’ hearts numb.

For us, the silence means something different. We are sobered by His death, but we know that Easter is almost here.

And yet, Holy Saturday is where, “in the shadow of the cross,” we can “see our shame for what it was,” and begin to feel the heart of God, the “heart of grace.”

It is finished. Those were the words Jesus uttered on the cross. Later, a leader in the early church would write in a letter to the “Hebrews” that Christ’s death was a sacrifice offered “once for all.”

Think about that: once for all. For you. It’s over. There’s nothing for you to do to add to it, nothing you can do to atone for your wrongs. It is finished.

So, be still. This is the greatest Sabbath of all—the truest and deepest rest. This is the rest that comes from knowing that in Christ, God has done for us what we could not do for ourselves. And by the Spirit, God is doing in us what we could not do by ourselves.

As the body of Jesus lay in the ground, the Father knew what was coming. God was working beneath the surface. No one saw it coming.

And so for us, everything has changed, even though it doesn’t appear that way. We are no longer laboring on our own, trying to impress God or to please God. Every effort we now make springs from a deep and abiding rest—a rest that comes from trusting God’s work. In fact, it is our stillness that helps us become aware of God’s activity. When we are still, we can truly know that He is God.

So, breathe in deeply now. Rest in the silence of Holy Saturday. Resurrection—the thing that only God can bring about— is coming.

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