Jesus “Stole” the Victory from the Thief

Next week is Easter Sunday: Jesus’ Victory over Sin and Death.

Truly the Thief and Enemy of our souls comes to kill, steal, and destroy. The thief leaves loss, brokenness, and broken hearts wherever he has been. BUT Jesus’ response was “I have come that you may have Life and Life to the full.”

​And further He said, “I have come to destroy the works of the Devil.” Jesus would “rob” from the Thief his ability to bring ultimate destruction.

Throughout Jesus’ ministry we see testimonies of His great power against the effects of the thief’s power of sin and death. Jesus healed broken lives devastated by the cursed world we live in. He healed broken hearts that had been devastated by their fellow man and even their very family members. We even witness His power over the thief stealing a life as He stands and speaks with authority:” Lazarus, come forth.” However, there was still a greater power He was yet to face: Death itself. All these with their healed sight, legs, and hearts would still one day have to die.

Then the Thief tried to use his power of Death on the Lord of Life. He thought he had won a glorious victory and now would be free to wreak greater destruction on mankind. BUT that same part of John where Jesus promises Life, He tells us how that life will be possible: the Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep. The thief would try to steal the Life of the Shepherd not realizing that he would be defeated by his own “victory”!

Jesus now would offer Eternal Healing,
​Eternal Life, and Forgiveness! 

The most startlingly testimony to this is the Thief on the Cross. He was actually the very first to understand that what Jesus was doing right then would open the hope of eternal life. He began his last hours Guilty and Condemned. But his words of faith to Jesus: “Lord, Remember me when you come in your Kingdom” meant he ended his earthly life forgiven and welcomed into the very Kingdom of the One dying next to him! The Resurrection of Jesus guaranteed these to that criminal. There are also offered to all us guilty ones who even now live much our lives not recognizing the One who is always next us offering His Death on our behalf.

Broken hearts are healed forever in Heaven. Broken understandings are forever clarified in Heaven. No anger, unforgiveness, addiction, sorrow, or other instruments of the Thief will ever it past the Gates of Heaven. Jesus lives and reigns there forever where He has stored up and guaranteed the real Treasures!

Meanwhile we still see things “in the Glass darkly” as it states in 1 Corinthians 13. We try to imagine and live by eternal things but the things of this sinful world keep distorting that which we try to see and understand. Just like a mirror at a county fair, we can’t trust what we think we are seeing—we need God to set us straight and look rather into the mirror of His Word. Some us get it more distorted than others. Thank God that His Resurrection and Eternity reverses all that distortion.

“For now we see only a reflection in a mirror;
then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part;
then I will fully know, even as I am fully known.”
1 Corinthians 13:12

I watched my Father pass into Heaven itself just a week ago (March 18, 2016). The Thief did not steal my Dad away because Jesus by His Death and Resurrection had already secured for him a place in Heaven “where the thief cannot break in and steal”!