Give God your best. This is perhaps one of the slogans of the church. But do you know that Jesus Christ also died for your worst? For your failures, for your unmet needs, for your pain, for the lies that you've believed so long that they have become your identity. 

"But he [Jesus Christ] was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed." – Isaiah 53:5

Jesus suffered so that we would have peace and healing. He served the sentence that our sin merits. 

Just imagine that you were a convicted, hardened criminal. You were sentenced to the death penalty. But instead of dying, an innocent citizen who had do no wrong offers to die in your place. You try to say "no," but he insists, saying that he loves you and wants to give you a second chance to live. You can't refuse. 

With the wonders of plastic surgery, you change places. He is made to look exactly like you, and everyone thinks he is the guilty one. That he has committed heinous crimes. His life is misery, and then he dies while you go free to live a new life. 

Everything goes alright for a little while. You can't quite believe that you have liberty, and you have a new zeal for life. Then you are overwhelmed by how bad you are, and you start destroying yourself. You mortify your body and even start contacting executioners. You wonder how hard it would be to build a guillotine in your backyard. Suffering is what you deserve, you tell yourself.

Can you imagine how the person who died in your place would feel, watching you suffer unnecessarily? It would be like a slap in the face for what he had done for you. He died so that you wouldn't have to. He suffered, so that you could start fresh. Justice had already been satisfied. You can't take back what he did for you.

I don't know about you, but I am really good at living in guilt, thinking I need to hold onto my worst. In fact, sometimes, I don't want to even acknowledge pain and suffering in my life. It is easier to minimize or ignore it. But in doing so, I am negating Jesus Christ's act of love on the cross. I am withholding the joy he deserves. The reward he earned by suffering in my place. And I am missing out on the peace and healing that he offers. 

Will you believe that God wants you to bring out your worst? To hand it over instead of being crushed under the weight. We'll never be able to give God our best if we won't first let him take our worst. 

"I quit." 

Those of you who know me well know that those words don't often come out of my mouth together. Achievement fuels me. My goals are always before me. I tend to believe that with enough hard work, anything can be accomplished. Once I attain a goal, I am running full speed ahead to the next goal.

In some ways, I am never satisfied. There is always a better way, always room for improvement. It is never finished. 

"It is finished." These were Jesus last words before he would die and days later be resurrected. What was finished? In brief, everything Jesus needed to accomplish on our behalf – enduring the agony of our sin and the resulting absence of God's presence, so we would never have to again. 

However, many Christians (myself included) tend to live as if Jesus forgot to dot a few "i"s and cross a few "t"s. In all of our efforts to look good and have everything together spiritually, our lives are negating Jesus' finished work. In effect, we become the object of our own faith. 

What does this have to do with embracing and being embraced by Jesus Christ (where I left you at the end of Part I)? Everything. 

When I was a little girl, the moment my dad walked in the door from work, I was lined up at the end of the entryway ready to run and leap into his arms. I never worried about whether he would catch me or not. I know my daddy was strong enough to hold me and the few joyful moments I would spend in his arms would reassure me of my father's love for me.

When we embrace someone, we are also being embraced. And since we know that God is much grander than we are, this embrace is more about being taken up in His arms and resting in Him. 

Most parents say that their love for their children is immediate. They don't wait for their infants to prove themselves worthy of being loved. They love their children because they belong to them. 

In the same way, I (and all who have been claimed as God's children) can rest in our identity in Jesus Christ, the one who has finished what we could not. 

So I quit. No more striving. Anything I am doing to prove myself is worthless and, actually, quite disgusting. Because of who I am in Christ and what he has finished on my behalf, I am free to just be. 

Consequently, I am practicing the presence of God and transformationally his love releases me to let go of striving. My most recent release was marathon training. I have run one marathon, and I learned so much about perseverance and dependence on God for strength. I wanted to run a second marathon, but one day in the midst of a run, I couldn't go on anymore (granted it was over 90 degrees out). I prayed a half-surrendered prayer, telling God he could stop me if he wanted to (but really, I didn't want him to). 

I kept running, thinking I was ok but knowing I wasn't. Deep down, in spite of all my spiritualizing of the race, my real motivation ended in pride.  I already have a finisher's medal. There is nothing left to prove. 

Once I was convicted that I probably shouldn't keep going (a month later), God took it away. My medical certificate was rejected for not saying "marathon in competition" (mine only said "marathon") and not having the stamp of my doctor (doctors in the States don't have stamps). 

Now my goal is to run the race of faith, running toward my savior Jesus who loves me, who has accomplished everything that matters. 

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." – Hebrews 12:1b-3

Part III will focus on practicing the presence of Christ and what it means to enter His rest. Until then, I urge you to give up and get going toward Jesus.