Luke
24:5-6 NLT
…Then the men
asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He
isn’t here! He is risen from the dead!
Remember what he told you back in Galilee,
Friday was one of
the most difficult days for those who followed Jesus. I refer to the day we call “Good Friday” which
didn’t seem very good from the outside looking in. It was the day that Jesus died. Yet without Friday we wouldn’t have Sunday.
The verses above
came up on Sunday morning. Women had
gone to the grave to finish preparing Jesus’ body for burial, but as they
arrived Jesus’ body wasn’t these. An
angel from God appeared to them and shared the dialogue we read in that
verse. Think about if you would had been
there and how shocked and out of breath you would be.
Without Jesus’
death and resurrection we would not have the salvation that God offers to those
who will accept it. Passion of the Cross and
the empty tomb signify for us the love of God sealed for us making our
salvation real.
The Easter story is one of a
love story between the creator and the people He created, between God and man,
between hope and the hopeless, between Him and me, you and Him. I pray that you will be so overcome with His
love that you have to share it with others today and along your way.
Jesus’ life and
death sealed for us what God did for us.
Here is a verse that stuck out to me in preparing for yesterday’s
sermon:
Isaiah
53:5 NLT
But he was
pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be
whole. He was whipped so we could be
healed.
He made us
whole. He completed us by His taking our
sins on Him. That was God’s plan from
the start and continues to be God’s plan for changing lives today.
I ask that you
spend some time reading through the following verses and contemplated what
Jesus did and how God’s love completed us.
You must
have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. 6 Though
he was God, he did not think of
equality with God as something to cling to. 7 Instead,
he gave up his divine privileges; he
took the humble position of a slave and
was born as a human, being.
When he appeared in human form 8 he humbled himself in obedience to
God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Romans
4:25 NLT
He was handed over to die
because of our sins, and he was raised from the dead to make us right with God.
God made him who had no
sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus set aside His
divinity to become human so He could take away our sin.
1
Peter 2:23-24 NLT
He did not retaliate when
he was insulted. When he suffered, he
did not threaten to get even. He left his case in the hands of God, who always
judges fairly. He personally carried
away our sins in his own body on the cross so we can be dead to sin and live
for what is right. You have been healed by his wounds!
Pull apart those
truths. Each of those verses is laced
with the love of God that completes us.
It takes us from death to life, from condemnation to forgiveness. That is how big God’s love is and how sweet
the truth of our Easter holiday is. May
we be so touched by His love that we cannot stay the same!
1
John 2:1 NIV
My dear children, I write
this to you so that you will not sin. But
if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus
Christ, the Righteous One.
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