Today we Celebrate Easter
I wrote and read the following before the Easter meal at my parent's home this last Easter Sunday.
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Today we celebrate Easter. We celebrate the triumph of the Lord Jesus Christ over death by His rising from the dead and His absolute and final defeat of sin and death. We celebrate our adoption as sons and daughters of the One True and Living God through His death and rising. And we celebrate that He alone is the God of Justice & He is Love.
But not everyone has seen and believed this most glorious truth of what God has done for each of us. And once knowing we are quick to forget and sure to falter in our deeds and thoughts.
The truth is that it’s not easy to accept Jesus words that we are evil at the core of who we are and that we need to be born again and we can’t make it happen. It is not easy to accept that we deserve Hell because of who we aside from all the evil we think and do.
Jesus speaks the truth out of love in Matthew 7:9-11:
“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”
So God himself gave us the perfect Gift that was necessary for the payment and punishment of our sins. He became that perfect substitute on the Cross when His hour had come.
Paul the one that use to murder Christians before Jesus found him says in
2 Corinthians 5:21
Out of His perfect justice he had to punish this sin of the world. And He paid it Himself. 'For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.'
Jesus paid the punishment of our sin for the sake of Joy! So that you and I would know and Love him. And 700 years before Jesus walked the Earth Isaiah the prophet says in ch. 42:22
“ there is no other God besides Me,
A just God and a Savior;
There is none besides Me.
“ Look to Me, and be saved,
All you ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.”
So there is no other answer for the evils of the world or the evils of our own hearts than to Look to Jesus! Look to Jesus! Look to Jesus and Live”
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Today then, we celebrate Easter. We join in the Joy of Christ the bridegroom who for that joy set before Him has laid down His own innocent life for us- His beloved Bride so that we would be made truly and finally alive once and for all.
_________________
Today we celebrate Easter. We celebrate the triumph of the Lord Jesus Christ over death by His rising from the dead and His absolute and final defeat of sin and death. We celebrate our adoption as sons and daughters of the One True and Living God through His death and rising. And we celebrate that He alone is the God of Justice & He is Love.
But not everyone has seen and believed this most glorious truth of what God has done for each of us. And once knowing we are quick to forget and sure to falter in our deeds and thoughts.
The truth is that it’s not easy to accept Jesus words that we are evil at the core of who we are and that we need to be born again and we can’t make it happen. It is not easy to accept that we deserve Hell because of who we aside from all the evil we think and do.
Jesus speaks the truth out of love in Matthew 7:9-11:
“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”
So God himself gave us the perfect Gift that was necessary for the payment and punishment of our sins. He became that perfect substitute on the Cross when His hour had come.
Paul the one that use to murder Christians before Jesus found him says in
2 Corinthians 5:21
Out of His perfect justice he had to punish this sin of the world. And He paid it Himself. 'For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.'
Jesus paid the punishment of our sin for the sake of Joy! So that you and I would know and Love him. And 700 years before Jesus walked the Earth Isaiah the prophet says in ch. 42:22
“ there is no other God besides Me,
A just God and a Savior;
There is none besides Me.
“ Look to Me, and be saved,
All you ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.”
So there is no other answer for the evils of the world or the evils of our own hearts than to Look to Jesus! Look to Jesus! Look to Jesus and Live”
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Today then, we celebrate Easter. We join in the Joy of Christ the bridegroom who for that joy set before Him has laid down His own innocent life for us- His beloved Bride so that we would be made truly and finally alive once and for all.
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