All tagged easter
In celebration of Holy Week, Easter morning, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, I want to share something with you that I wrote a few years ago. Instead of our typical devotional message I want to share a poem that I hope you will enjoy and contemplate throughout the day and year to come.
We have completed Holy Week, and during this week we lived and were spiritually crucified with Christ during His final days. We followed Him through the joy of His arrival in Jerusalem, to the last supper, His anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane, the capture, trial, and scourging of our Lord, and then we join Him in spirit on the cross for His crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension.
Once the Holy Spirit begins to move on us we receive great power, but the often overlooked gift of the Spirit is our ability to give testimony to others. The apostles testified regarding the resurrection of Jesus, and although we can speak of that too, our most effective testimony comes when we not only speak of Jesus, but give witness to our own experiences, such as how we came to know Jesus as our savior, our own moments of amazing faith and grace, and how we now await anxiously for His return, and our own resurrection.
We serve a living God, and His Son Jesus is alive too, He is no longer in the grave, but has risen!!! He has defeated death by His resurrection just as He defeated sin by His dying. Easter Morning is so near, and like that first glorious Easter His tomb remains empty! Hallelujah, shout Hallelujah!! This is the day of the Lamb; the Prince of Peace is alive, and He is preparing to come for our bodies, and to bring us, fully resurrected, before the Father! Are we celebrating His resurrected life every day? Do we know that He lives? Are we living our lives in daily anticipation as we await the trumpet’s sound, or are we blind to what has happened, what was promised, and find ourselves mourning, and perplexed, outside an empty tomb? No, God forbid, because “HE IS RISEN!”, and our Savior is coming again! “HALLELUJAH!! Will you say HALLELUJAH!!! with me? JESUS IS ALIVE!!!
Easter is approaching and we will remember the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as we walk into this season, but we don’t do so by rending our clothing, and mourning His death alone; we also celebrate His rebirth, the resurrection! Remaining in grief and sorrow is to deny the will of God, and to negate Christ’s great obedience and love that was manifest in His death. The blood, and body of Jesus means little to us without the power that His resurrection brings. It is the difference between hope, and lost hope, eternal sorrow, and eternal joy. Do we choose then to remain on Calvary, or at the grave? I pray we don’t, because our Lord has risen, and He has claimed victory for us against all sin and death! Our faith is not based on mourning His death, but celebrating His life. How do we approach Calvary, and the death of those we love?
Do you believe that there is any way in which you could possibly be like God? If I told you that it was more than just possible, but God’s will, and plan, for mankind from the moment of creation would you argue that we are just human beings, and would never be capable of such a thing? Then Let me ask you another question... what about Jesus, and do you believe He was, and is, like you?
Do you fear God when you enter your prayer closet to speak with Him, or when you feel His presence as you worship? When Jesus was a boy there was a veil in the temple that separated all men from the Holy of Holies except the high priest, and this man was only allowed to enter into this sacred place once each year. The fear of God was so great that they would tie a rope around his waist so that if he were to die while behind the curtain, they could drag his body out. Yet, today we enter in and out of God’s presence without fearing death because Jesus paid the price of our admission with His life. At the moment when He breathed His last the veil was ripped asunder, our bodies became the temple, and the divine presence of God was made available to every believer.
Do we place our will ahead of the will of God? Do we feel that what we want for our life should have a greater weight than what God would have us do? To dispel this notion we needn’t look any further than Jesus as He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the words He spoke regarding the subjugation of His will to God’s. We all have a personal will for our lives just as Jesus did when He prayed, but as children of God, and having placed Him above all else, then His will becomes master over everything in our life... even our own will, and greatest desires.