Jesus

JESUS LOVES YOU!

No IFs, ANDs, or BUTs about it!

There was just a nudging in my spirit today that someone needed to hear that.

“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
       I have drawn you with loving-kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3).

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16) 

 ^“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.   This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10).

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.   Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.   But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8).

“In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:37-39).

SO, NO MATTER WHAT YOUR DAY ENTAILS, CARRY THIS WITH YOU:

JESUS LOVES YOU!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter

In an attempt to bring about a teachable moment with my 4 year old son, I told him that Easter was this weekend, and tested him to see if he remembered what Easter was all about.

“Yeah,” he said, “Candy.”  Strike one.

“No, not candy, honey.”

“Ummm, finding eggs?” He tried again.  Strike two.

Suppressing my laughter (or tears) by this point, he finally said, “Loving Jesus” on his third attempt.  After trying to convince myself that I wasn’t a failure as a mother because my child did not spout a memorized Bible passage on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to me at that opportune time, I proceeded to tell him why Easter was so wonderful.

The temptation by the culture these days is to narrow down the truth of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection to a historical timeline of facts, and then that’s all.  Yes, we can believe that Jesus lived, died for our sins, and rose from the grave, but somehow these facts never make their way to our hearts.  We keep them at a distance, acknowledging that they are true, but never taking the next step to experiencing the life changing power of Jesus Christ.  Instead we place our full confidence in the things of this world.  But as Steven Curtis Chapman once sang, “There is more to this life than living and dying, more than just trying to make it through the day.”  Today, let’s truly experience what Jesus did for us on that Easter morning.

He is risen.  “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.  We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5-6).  Good Friday reminds us about the gruesome death that Jesus endured on our behalf.  Knowing the state of our souls, Jesus died under intense scrutiny, ridicule and torture.  But the story does not end there.  Three days later, He rose again.  That Easter morning, an angel said those beautiful words, “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.  Come and see the place where he lay” (Matthew 28:6). 

We are redeemed.  The plan of redemption has been set and carried out.  The word “redeem” literally means to “buy out of.”  Jesus bought us out of slavery to sin and we can be set free when we accept this gift of grace.  This has been done for us, because of God’s great love, not due to any works of our own.  And it is purely by faith that we receive it.  But so many times, we negate his act of mercy and grace by narrowing it down to rules and works.  Galatians 2:21 says that this is ”to repudiate God’s grace” (MSG).  Let us always remember that what Christ did on the cross for us and His offer of eternal life is not anything that we can earn.

Will we receive?  Let us resolve today to not so easily dismiss Jesus as just a historical figure.  As we celebrate today with food, family and friends, let us also remember that there is more to this life–there is a spiritual dimension to our lives and the Lord Jesus wants us to experience and worship Him in His entire splendor.  J.P. Moreland, Ph.D. says in Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ, “The experiential test is, ‘He’s still alive, and I can find out by relating to him.’  If you were on a jury and heard enough evidence to convince you of someone’s guilt, it wouldn’t make sense to stop short of the final step of convicting him.  And for people to accept the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and not take the final step of testing it experientially would be to miss where the evidence is ultimately pointing.”  Do you experience the power of the resurrection of Jesus in your life?  Have you taken that next step, beyond acknowledging the facts of Jesus’ act of love for us, to make it personal and truly experience Him in your everyday life?

Lord, thank you for your love, mercy and sacrifice on that cross.  Thank you for dying for my sins.  I believe that you established victory over death when you rose from the grave.  On this Easter weekend, I ask you to come into my heart and into my life.  Fill me with your peace and change me.  Make my life a testimony of your grace.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Happy Easter to everyone!

“Worth Savin Me?”

“For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”  John 3:16

How many times have we heard that verse before in our lifetime?  Have we heard it so often that we’ve become numb to its meaning?  If we have already been redeemed by Christ for our sins and know that we have eternal life, then this verse brings comfort to us.  But is that all this verse says?  We live in a world where it is not politically correct, or tolerant, to acknowledge the other portion of this verse.  The part about perishing.

There is a world that is perishing; a world that is dying in their sins today, tomorrow, and a month from now.  These same people are the ones with whom you work , share a bus or a subway, have lunch, or attend children’s birthday parties.  And we have been given a command — to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).

I viewed a music video (below) by the group Nickelback that absolutely changed me.  The song is called “Savin Me” and if you view it in terms of our unavoidable physical death and the spiritual depravity that this world faces without Jesus, I know you will never be the same again.  (A quick note about the video: those are numbers above everyone’s heads — the number of seconds left in their life.)  Jesus came to save every single person, but how many of them do not know it, and may perish?  How many of them ask daily, to anyone who will listen, if “it’s worth savin me?”

Which side of this verse (John 3:16) are you on?  If you do not have eternal life as the Bible promises to those who accept Christ, please visit the link below to find out how you can.  And if you have that life, do you have a prompting to care for those still on the perishing side?

http://heargoodnews.com/gospel/doyouknow.html

Recommended Books on Apologetics

The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel

Strobel, a former journalist, interview various scholars and arrives at irrefutable historical and scientific evidence for the existence and deity of Christ.

 

The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell

Over 700 pages of easy to access evidence for Christianity and the Bible.