Good Friday is more than a memorial—it’s a divine reset. It calls us to surrender self, embrace sacrifice, and rise into resurrection life and leadership.
Today isn’t just another square on your calendar.
Today is set apart. Holy. Significant.
Before the hustle of your day begins and the notifications ping endlessly on your devices, let’s pause.
It’s Good Friday. An invitation to ponder.
Not out of obligation, but out of reverence.
Today is a day to reflect. Remember. Reset.
This is the day the greatest leader who ever lived—Jesus Christ—chose surrender over survival.
Obedience over optics.
Sacrifice over self-preservation.
And He did it for you. For me. For all of us.
This wasn’t just a dramatic moment in history. It was a cosmic collision of justice and mercy.
Our sin drove the nails into the hands of Jesus.
This was our rebellion, our guilt, our shame—crushing the One who never stopped loving us.
Heaven watched in silence as humanity buried its hope.
The world thought it was in control. But this was the plan all along.
The brutality was real. The humiliation, complete.
In that moment, the Light of the world seemed extinguished.
“Jesus is dead,” they said.
And for a terrifying moment—it looked like they were right.
You may be feeling the same weight today.
Maybe you've built something impressive—yet still feel hollow inside.
Maybe you’ve won the applause but lost your joy.
Maybe you’re standing at a crossroads where obedience feels costly, and surrender feels like weakness.
But Good Friday reframes the entire definition of strength. “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23)
The cross is not a call to weakness. It’s a call to resilience.
This is a call to die to lesser things so you can rise to eternal ones.
And this is your moment to step back and ask:
“What am I really building?”
“Whose kingdom am I expanding—mine or His?”
“What am I still unwilling to lay it all down at the foot of the Cross?”
The cross isn’t just a symbol of death. It’s a declaration of the most powerful kind of life.
I live in Southern California, where we are accustomed to watching landscapes burn.
Every year around the same time, there’s a new mountain range, forest, or valley that’s raged with wildfires.
The aftermath is always bleak. Charred, blackened, and dead.
But something always happens after. The flame heats dormant seeds, causing them to split. Then, when the rains come, the landscapes burst with life. Wildflowers. Grassy plains. New trees budding with promise.
Death to the old had to occur before new life could blossom.
The Cross looked like failure. But it was the setup for the greatest reversal in human history.
So if you’re feeling buried under pressure, stuck in pain, or facing uncertainty—hear this:
You’re not being buried to be forgotten. You’re being planted to rise.
The Cross isn’t the end. It was the flame before the bloom.
We all want the resurrection life—hope, healing, breakthrough.
But we forget that resurrection requires a burial.
Good Friday is the invitation to lay it all down:
Your striving. Your status. Your self-reliance. Your sin.
To stand at the foot of the Cross and finally say, “Not my will, but Yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)
And in that holy surrender, something shifts.
Death makes way for destiny.
Surrender births unshakable strength.
Sacrifice creates space for success that doesn’t burn out but bears fruit.
Everything.
Because this is the day death was defeated.
This is the day our shame was paid for.
This is the day the King gave His life so that yours could begin.
And this is the day we stop pretending we’re in control and finally surrender to the One who is.
