Jesus is Risen

Jesus is risen! Therefore, you can choose by faith to live with joy today. True joy comes from our risen Lord, not from your job, your marital status, your rank in life, your successes or failure or what other people say or think about you.

Jesus is risen! Therefore, you can choose by faith to live with hope today. Our risen Lord is sure testimony to the end of the story. Our risen Lord offers a certain hope that Jesus will return. 

Jesus is risen! Therefore, you can choose by faith to live with peace in your heart today. God, who orchestrated your redemption in a way you never dreamed, can take care of you in ways you never imagined. 

Jesus is risen! Therefore, you can choose by faith to love your coworkers, your friends and your family today. It is God’s supernatural, abundant love for you that enables you to extravagantly love the people God has placed in your life. 

Jesus is risen! Therefore, you can choose by faith to acknowledge God’s presence in each circumstance of your workday. God has promised to never leave you or forsake you. You can count on that promise because Jesus’ resurrection is proof positive that God is a promise keeping God. 

Jesus is risen! Therefore, you can choose by faith to invite Jesus to be with you in your meetings, your presentations, your paper work, and your interactions with customers. Jesus won’t force himself into your life. Jesus will gladly enter your home, your workplace, your life if you will welcome him in. 

Jesus is risen! Therefore, you can choose by faith to enter God’s presence. You can choose by faith today to allow Jesus’s shed blood to cleanse you from all unrighteousness so that you can stand holy and blameless in God’s presence. 

Jesus is risen! Therefore, you can choose by faith to come to God right now with your hopes and dreams, your fears, doubts, and anxieties and lay them at the foot of the empty cross. Jesus cares about what is on your heart. God who alone had the power to raise Jesus from the dead, is more than powerful enough to deal with each circumstance in your life and your associated fears, doubts and anxieties. 

Jesus is risen! Therefore, you can choose by faith to come to God right now with your questions. You are not the first person to ask hard questions. When you bring your questions to God, you are bringing them to the Creator of the world. Bring your questions to the One who lovingly formed you with your abilities and skills. Bring your questions to the one who created your coworkers, your family and friends. Jesus doesn’t want you perplexed or confused. 

Jesus is risen! Therefore, you can choose by faith to embrace an intimate love relationship with your Redeemer, Savior and Lord today. Head knowledge about the resurrection is informative and insightful but won’t change anything about your day. 

Jesus is risen! Therefore, you can choose by faith to allow Jesus to be your Shepherd, your Father, your Redeemer and your Lord. 

Jesus is risen! Therefore, you can choose by faith to hear his voice say “I love you”, “you are forgiven”, “I’ve got this”, “Come follow me, my burden is easy and my yoke is light”. 

Rejoice! 

Why is Easter Important

With less than a week until Easter, many Christians are thinking of how to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yet despite this, there are many more Christians who view Easter as just another day of the year, just another government holiday where they don’t have to work, where they get the day off of school, or as a day where they get to eat extra candy from the Easter bunny. Why does this happen? Why do some people no longer view Easter as important to them? Why do some people view Easter as just another day of the year? 

I don’t pretend to have all the answers to this question, nor do I know what goes on in the minds of people. Yet that said, I believe that many people have been listening to the beliefs and views of modern society in regards to Easter, and are letting these views take precedence in their lives, either willingly or unwillingly. There are times when it is difficult to be a Christian in the modern world. There are times when we all struggle with our faith. I’m going to put the idea of Easter into context, to try to explain why it is important for us as Christians to celebrate Easter as one of, if not, the, most important holy days in Christianity. Potentially even more important that Christmas (gasp). 

See, early Christians did not necessarily view Christmas as the most holy and important day of the year. Instead, they viewed Easter as the most important date for all Christians. There were even church councils and treatises on the topic of Easter and the dating for it, no such things exist for Christmas. I am not trying to negate Christmas, just put it in context of early Christianity. Why was Easter so important to early Christians? 

The answer is simple. Easter is so important because all of Christianity revolves around the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If Jesus did not die for our sins, or if Jesus did not rise again after three days, then the entire hope of Christianity is based upon nothing but lies and falsities. In short, Christianity would be meaningless as a religion, because our sins would not be forgiven by Christ. If it wasn’t for Easter we would have to continue living as the Jews of old and offering animal sacrifices to the Lord for our sins. 

The single reason why Easter was and is so important to Christianity is because it is the centre of our faith and religion, and the basis of our identity as Christians. Sure, Jesus’ birth is important, as is His ascension. But none of them saved us from our sins. Jesus’ birth is only in two of the Gospels, the ascension in another two and Acts. Yet, you know what is mentioned in every single gospel, and is the focus of each gospel? Not Jesus’ birth, not even Jesus’ teachings (though these are quite important), but Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is so important that it was seen as the cornerstone for Christianity, the rock upon which the early Church was built. 

Therefore it can be seen that Easter should be viewed as the most important holiday for all Christians. Not just those pious believers, or those of the early Church. EVERYONE. You, me, your coworkers, your friends, that person down the pew from you, the organist and pianist. Every single Christian should view Easter as the most important event of the year. And we should not be afraid of viewing Easter this way. As Paul says in Romans 1:16, I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes-the Jew first and also the Gentile. This Good News is that Christ died on the cross for all of humanity, not just the Jews, but also the Gentiles that their sins may be redeemed if they believe in Him, that they will have everlasting life. If Paul is not ashamed of the Good News of Christ, then why are we? Why should we not be out celebrating Easter as if it is the most important holiday of the year? Because it is. Easter is the most important holiday of the year for us as Christians. 

Easter is just as important for us today as it was 1800 years ago in the early church. Just as important because it represents that Jesus saved us from our sins by dying and rising again after three days. 

So this Easter, instead of just accepting it as another day, instead of just welcoming the break from the work week, recognize Easter for what it is and celebrate accordingly. Set aside fanciful notions of the Easter bunny and getting candy eggs in the semi-flooded fields of southern Manitoba, and focus on the truth of Easter. The truth of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This weekend remember the true meaning of Easter, the truth behind Christianity, and thank God for sending His son to die for our sins so that we may have eternal life in Him!

The Way of the Cross

Seeds are small and insignificant. Yet they have God’s life in them. A life that can only be fulfilled when they die. When a seed dies it lies dormant in the ground before bursting forth with life to fulfill its purpose as a plant, a tree, a flower, vegetables, or grain. All of creation is abundantly blessed with the beauty, the aroma and the usefulness of the transformed seed. When that seed dies and comes to life again, the seed not only is a blessing but it produces many new seeds which go on to be blessings. But more than that the new life that springs from a seed brings glory to God.

In the same way, in the grand scheme of creation each of us are like a seed in nature and have God’s life in us. Each of us have the opportunity to be an abundant blessing with the beauty, aroma and fruitfulness of our lives to all of creation, but only if in faith we follow the path of Jesus.  

The path Jesus walked is the path that rejects self-autonomy and self-desires and chooses to daily surrender to devotion and obedience to God’s will. The path Jesus walked rejects the false truth of our importance in this world, and in faith believes the truth that we are priceless treasures and God’s children. 

The path Jesus walked is the path of humility, self-sacrifice, and selflessness. The path Jesus walked can only be walked by dying to love of self and embracing a life of love for our Savior and love for all of his Creation. 

The path Jesus walked is the path that leads to the cross. A seed’s life is not over when it falls into the ground and dies, instead that is the beginning of the seed’s new life. In the same way Jesus’ life wasn’t over at the cross. Jesus sprung to resurrection life 3 days later so that we who believe in him might enjoy the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. 

Our lives do not end when we surrender our will, our desire, our selves at the cross. At the cross our life begins anew forgiven and cleansed from all unrighteousness. At the cross we spring to newness of life and become a blessing to many. 

The cross wasn’t an easy choice for Jesus. His heart was troubled as he wrestled with choosing to follow the way of the cross. Yet in faith Jesus boldly cries out “Father, glorify your name!” (John 12:28). Before he had time to take another breath, God, his Father replied with the assurance that He had glorified Jesus name, and with the promise that He would glorify Jesus name. 

The cross isn’t always an easy choice for us. But when we in faith surrender our lives to God, God gives us a glorious new name as assurance that we are now his child and an heir of his Kingdom. When we surrender our lives to God, God promises that when we get to Heaven we will have glorified bodies and live forever. 

When we submit to the way of the cross, Satan is cast out of our heart, and our Redeemer the Holy Spirit, our creator dwells within us. The devil will continue to assault us, and try to deceive us, but now he can only assault and deceive from without. God, dwelling within us, speaks to us through his Spirit so that we don’t consent to Satan’s temptations. 

Because we have rejected our claim to autonomy and self-control and submitted to God’s control over our lives we are not longer defined by what we do, or our work environment. Instead God knows us as his children. 

Because we have rejected the way of rebellion to God’s will, because we have detached our selves from all the things of this world including the good things, the idols we worship, our addictions and our self-love, we are no longer defined by what people say about us or are talking about. Instead we are defined by God’s love for us which enables us to unconditionally love those around us. 

Because we have rejected the false claim of self in this world which is in rebellion against God, we no longer are defined by fear, because God’s perfect love drives away all fear. As God’s children our life and our future is safe in God’s unchanging hands. 

The way of the cross is more than just a transaction with God, it is the continual experience of God’s intimate love relationship with us. Choosing the way of the cross brings the joy and blessing of being with the Father through our union with Christ. 

Jesus invites you today to come away from the loneliness of living as a single seed separated from God to a life of fruitfulness by dying to yourself and embracing in faith the love of God.