Every time I get to Easter I am reminded of the Easter several years ago when I was detained for shoplifting Cream Eggs. Three burly security men wrestled me to the ground on the concourse of London's Victoria Station - just outside WHSMiths, if you can picture where that is - and invited me in not the gentlest terms to accompany them back inside.

The story isn't quite as dramatic as it first appears. Not least of all because I hadn't stolen Cream Eggs. For sure I had too many in my pocket to classify as healthy, but I had paid for every one of them as the cashier soon confirmed.

But strangely I felt guilty, just from being accused. I had to pinch myself to realise that I was not guilty. The reasons I was not guilty was that they were paid for. Which is not a bad definition of how Christians have to reckon ourselves before God.

We have been paid for. This doesn't stop Satan constantly accusing us, as the Bible says day and night, trying to get us to feel condemned. Once upon a time he had a case - we were guilty of much worse before the court of God's justice than mere shoplifters, and the accusations stuck. They said true things about us. But now we are paid for and the Devil's accusations that we are guilty before God don't stick. Unless we give them credence.

That is the heart of Easter, the heart of the atonement, the heart of grace. Jesus became a curse for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21). He freed us from guilt and the curse of God's Law, so that we might receive the promise of the Holy Spirit. Easter should make us leap with joy, so much more than those acquitted of any earthly crime. If you are a Christian you are NOT condemned. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus. |Reckon on it, preach it to yourself, enjoy your freedom in Christ and resist the accusations of the Devil who would like to take away all your joy and make you believe you are not a new creature in Christ.