Good Friday to Easter: Seeming Disaster to Glorious Victory!
Our God is very demanding. His standards are frightening, as they are unattainable by our human efforts. They are impossible and we cannot satisfy Him nor His expectations. Only shame, defeat, and despair result. I can never measure up, be enough, have a good sense of who I am and how I fit into this world. What’s the use of trying?
But wait. But God! In His righteousness, holiness, perfection which cannot tolerate any imperfection, His true nature of love and mercy is therein exercised by His Grace. His love is perfect and is full of mercy and grace. We are His creation, created to know, receive, experience, and express that Spirit of Love.
More good news; in His perfection, His ways and plans are perfect and perfectly working in, through, and around us as the focus of His Love. Solution? JESUS! The Way, The Truth, The life! The Way to rightly reconcile the great chasm between our desperate need and our lack of ability to ever experience the fulness of His heart’s desire for His creation; the oneness, union, relationship and intimacy of a journey in His loving presence and His personal engagement for every breath along this road called life.
His Way is sufficient for the requirement of holiness and perfection. And, He is the Source of abundant love and mercy, making it permanent by the seal of the Holy Spirit. Complete and forever one, is the great gift of salvation that is ours in Christ. And in His love and ever-present walk with us by His Spirit, He has committed to lead us into Being the expression of His unique love, plan, and purposes, forever and ever. That Life is not only found in Him but likewise sustained by Him [Philippians 2:13]. Wow, what an amazing gift does the death, burial, resurrection of Christ represent as well as the gift of the Holy Spirit to carry us in this eternal “love walk” with our creator. And finally in His masterful plan, He places us in community to be a vessel of his love to one another, for encouragement and exhortation to continue walking in this great gift. Let’s love one another with the love we have authentically received. The outcomes are without question… HIM!
What started as a really “bad day” was in fact the precursor to the greatest day in history. Every day we now live in Him has the same potential for His Redeeming Touch.
His system of reconciliation, resolution and renewal are perfect for all our needs, in lack and in fulness. Celebrate this Easter in this greatest gift only possible though His sacrifice of Love. It is meant for YOU! Re-Joy in the personal security of His love and pursuit and live today with confident expectation in His presence and Grace!
“The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship. If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared. But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year. For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. That is why, when Christ came into the world, he said to God, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings. But you have given me a body to offer. You were not pleased with burnt offerings or other offerings for sin. Then I said, ‘Look, I have come to do your will, O God— as is written about me in the Scriptures.’” First, Christ said, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings or burnt offerings or other offerings for sin, nor were you pleased with them” (though they are required by the law of Moses). Then he said, “Look, I have come to do your will.” He cancels the first covenant in order to put the second into effect. For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time. Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy. And the Holy Spirit also testifies that this is so. For he says, “This is the new covenant I will make with my people on that day, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” Then he says, “I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.” And when sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices. And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water. Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”
Hebrews 10:1-25 NLT