After church on Sunday I got talking with a member who I’d never met before. After we exchanged pleasantries, she asked what I did professionally and I did same after answering her. She told me how she worked at a visa office, making decisions on peoples visas daily. I jokingly asked if she realised how powerful she is and she said her time there was coming to an end because she didn’t like how much it drained her emotionally. While it was a job, she often found herself emotionally disturbed when she had to turn down genuine applications on account of one, two or more failed requirements.

After her explanation, it made more sense to me, how despite the power and prestige to the job, she’d rather prioritise her emotional and mental well-being by leaving soon.

The following day, right before I lay to sleep, I stumbled on Colossians 2. A chapter that has been on my heart for a while and I’ve been reading and re-reading. That night, for some reason my mind stayed on verse 14 of the chapter ~ “having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”

My mind kept going over it again and again and as I meditated, I remembered my conversation with the lady at church only a day before. How people got turned down and denied visas on account of one, two or more missed or faulty requirements.

I felt joy well up within me as the reality of this verse hit me! Every requirement that we didn’t meet, Jesus wiped it out. Rather than disqualify us, the requirement was wiped out because it was met and fulfilled in Jesus.

The requirements ceased to be the standard to vet us and our eternal destinies. In Christ, we became the ideal standard because we now met all of the requirement.

Sounds like deep ojoro, which is a Nigerian word meaning ‘doing all that’s possible just to favour someone’. And that’s exactly what happened. The requirements were edited to favour the man in Christ, simply because he became a man in Christ!

And for the rest of this week, my meditation has been and will continue to be that “there was no requirement that was/is against Rubie, through Christ, every requirement is met”. And this is my encouragement to your heart today.

God loves you enough to wipe out every requirement you didn’t meet, because Jesus met it already, how much more now that you are saved and standing in Him?