If we’re honest, life in Australia is pretty good, and yet no matter how good it is, we can never make it become life as it was made to be. Our lives were made to be in relationship with God – a life that never ends and a life with fulness of joy. But instead of this, all of us have chosen our own path separate from Him and the result is inescapable discontentment and death. We are constantly seeking joy in different things and people, but whatever glimpses of joy that we get always end – as does life itself. God’s eternal punishment should be the end of our story, but thankfully it’s not because in His kindness, God has made a way back by sending His Son to take on our humanity.

When Jesus said those strange words “It is finished,” He finished what He came to do. He showed God’s kindness by taking the punishment that people like us deserved, and when He conquered death by rising from the grave, He showed us that death is not the end of the story. One day, Jesus will return to end history and bring in eternity. Those who are His enemies will suffer an eternal death and those who are His followers will enjoy eternal life with Him.

Until that day, those who follow Jesus live their lives in a community who enjoy what He has done to save us, know more of who He is, and go into a world that needs to hear His story.