Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!
Hallelujah!
Sunday’s Here! Risen With Him! Every Day!
Amen & Amen
I often think of the day between the cross and the empty tomb as “Silent Saturday,” a day of great sorrow.
Luke reports in Chapter 23 about the trial, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus. Towards the end of that chapter is a verse that defines the atmosphere following the death of Jesus. “And when all the crowd that came to see the crucifixion saw what had happened, they went home in deep sorrow [beating their breasts].” [Luke 23:48 NLT]
Hope was gone, replaced with a stunned bleakness. The anticipation of great victory gave way to misery and defeat. The only sound to be heard was weeping and anguish.
They could not even imagine what was happening on the other side of the veil. They could not hear Satan’s cries as he was vanquished, the keys of death and the grave ripped from his hands. They could not hear the cries of the imprisoned rejoicing in freedom as the gates of hell and the grave were being opened. They could not hear the angels’ song of victory as they saw God’s Son awakening.
They could not know – yet – that “Death is swallowed up in victory.” That it has lost its sting forevermore!
But they would soon. Sunday’s Coming.
Nothing’s free. How often have we heard that if something seems to be too good to be true, it usually is. The world often tries to seduce us into buying something that will cost us far more than originally thought.
That’s true of this world, nothing is freely given. That’s NOT true of our Father God!
“In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will- to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.” [Ephesians 1:4-7 NIV]
We cannot make ourselves acceptable to God; but He, by the grace He FREELY GIVES, makes us accepted in Christ. This is our eternal position which will never change. Because of God’s grace in Christ, we are accepted before Him.
When Paul wrote to Philemon to encourage him to accept his runaway slave, Onesimus, he used the same argument. “If he owes you anything, I will pay it. Receive him as you would receive me”
Grace freely given. Accepted in the Beloved (God’s Son, Jesus the Christ). Every time I struggle with something, God reminds me, GRACE FREELY GIVEN, GRACE FREELY GIVEN, GRACE FREELY GIVEN!
It’s all about grace, grace, grace. The mountains in our lives are not going to be removed with our small shovels of human effort. They are going to be removed because of GRACE FREELY GIVEN at the Cross.
“And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ …” [Ephesians 1:9 NIV]
Ooo … a mystery! The word mystery here has nothing to do with things eerie or the junk novels that are so much a part of our culture. It means a “sacred secret, once hidden but now revealed to God’s people.”
We believers can share in a secret, the secret that God will one day unite everything in Christ.
Ever since sin came into the world, things have been falling apart. First, man was separated from God, then from each other. God scattered us across the globe and gave us different languages. God even set a difference between Jew and Gentile when He called Abraham and made a covenant with him.
It stayed that way until the cross, when we became reconciled to God, and to each other. In Christ, that wall of differences between Jew and Gentile was erased – now both stand even, accepted by faith, or rejected through lack of it.
Sin tears everything apart. But God, in Christ, brings it all back together – that’s the best mystery of all!
Some things never get old. A baby’s laugh. Spring flowers. Autumn trees. Fresh snow. Holding hands.
Some things never get old. No matter how many times I read Ephesians 2:8, no matter which translation I read, the marvels of that verse never get old.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” [NKJV]
I never tire of reading of God’s gift of grace. It never loses its wonder. We have been saved by God’s gift of grace. We do not merit salvation. We do not earn it. We were God’s enemies. And then God said, “here’s a gift for you, purchased with the life’s blood of my Precious Son. A gift of grace to become my child.”
During this season, my thoughts turn to the cross. There were many people around the cross, watching Jesus die. Some wept. Some reviled. God reminded me once to not be so sure I would have been among the weepers.
I know my sin. I know my shame. And now I know God’s gift of grace … I am a sinner saved by grace. How amazing is that!
Ever noticed how many books are written, how many songs are sung, how many stories are told about “love.” This country has an entire day devoted to “romantic love” (Valentine’s Day). There is a cable channel that is devoted to love movies (Hallmark). One of the angsts of life is finding someone to love who loves us back.
It’s been proven that babies thrive on love and suffer in its absence. And it’s not just babies who thrive on love. Ever spend time in a home for the elderly where there is only cold sterile assistance? I remember going to a convalescent home as part of a group that ministered with music, the Word, and lots of hugs … and the joy on the faces of those we ministered to was evident.
We need the touch of other people. We need to love and be loved by others in this life. But I venture to say that we need the love of God more than any other love. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation [atoning sacrifice] for our sins.” [1 John 4:10 NKJV]
“In this is love.” It is not my flawed, feeble love of God where the greatest love is found, it is His marvelous, awesome, unconditional, never ending, reckless love that sets the standard for love. He loved us when we were enemies. He loved us while we were shaking our fists and shouting “we will not have this God rule us!” He gave His most precious Son to die for us – to bring us back to Him.
“In this is [truly] love.”
Resurrection Sunday is a week away. I want to think about Christ Jesus in the days leading up to it, perhaps not in the way we usually think during this time of year, but instead about grace, and love and abundance. I want to begin with the description of Christ Jesus in Colossians 1, what may be the most profound and concentrated passage of doctrine about the Son of God in all of Scripture. (Read 1:13-20]
“For by him [Jesus] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” [vs 16-17 NIV]
Paul’s purpose for writing this letter was to refute the false doctrines that were beginning to invade the church, which acknowledged Jesus as a “prominent emissary” in salvation, but not the “preeminent author and finisher of salvation.”
Even in our modern-day churches, there are some who deny the deity of Jesus. You cannot deny Jesus’ deity and still have salvation because everything hinges on the truth that Jesus is divine, the second person of the Triune Godhead, fully God and fully man.
I may not understand how that is, but it stands true as the foundation of salvation. No man, no angel, no emissary, nothing apart from God Himself could save us. It doesn’t matter what else we may all have in common (faith, good works, love, etc), if we do not have the deity, the divine nature of Christ in common, then we have no common ground on which to stand.
One of my favorite books in the New Testament is Colossians, and my favorite chapter is Colossians 3. I love the beginning where it admonishes us to “seek those things which are above,” and the middle section which sets the character of our new nature in Christ Jesus. Part of that new nature is to sing “with grace in [our] hearts to the LORD.”
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” [Colossians 3:16 NKJV]
The NIV says we are to sing with “gratitude in [our] hearts,” and the NLT says we are to sing with “thankful hearts.”
The word there is Charis which we always say is the unmerited favor of God. But Strong’s says that charis [NT:5485] can also mean “especially the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life; including gratitude.”
It takes a heart filled with grace to sing with gratitude and thanksgiving. It takes a heart of grace to sing when we are in pain, or when circumstances seem to be against us. It certainly took grace for Paul and Silas to sing in that Philippian prison [Acts 16:22-25].
My “Valley of Vision” prayer this morning ended with “Let me never lose sight … of the exceeding wonder of grace.” Amen & Amen
When Israel was released to return to the Promised Land from Babylonian captivity to rebuild the temple, their enemies decided to have a go at them. They wanted to make them afraid to go on building the temple and even hired “counselors” to work again them to frustrate their plans. And it worked. They put down their axes and hammers and walked away from their mission. [Ezra 4:4-5]
“Then the peoples around them set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building. They hired counselors to work against them and frustrate their plans during the entire reign of Cyrus king of Persia and down to the reign of Darius king of Persia.” [NIV]
Discouragement. Ugly word. Ugly concept. Here the word used is OT:7503: raphah (raw-faw’); meaning to be weak(ened).
The enemy is wily, he is still hiring all kinds of ‘discouragement counselors’ to try to stop the work of the people of God. We must be aware that discouragement can blindside us. We are walking or working and suddenly the unexpected happens … something we thought we were past, something we thought would never hinder us, something that takes our minds off God in the work and places them on the difficulty in the work, something that cause us to stop and move from triumph into fear.
It wasn’t until years later that a couple brave Jews picked up their axes and hammers again and began rebuilding, and only after they did so, did a letter come from the king with his approval and protection to rebuild.
I have been thinking about that heartbreaking declaration in Jeremiah 2:13: “For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me—the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!” [NLT]
I wrote about it in yesterday’s devotion, noting that Christians must cling to two values. One, is that we believe the Bible to be the true word of God no matter how unpopular that view is. Two, is that Jesus ministered and fellowshipped with sinners, and in the end, we are those sinners now saved by grace.
Too often, Christians think that because this country was founded on Christian principles, all its citizens think and act like Christians. Then they are surprised when the world acts not like a Christian but like the world. Why do we expect the world to act like the Church when it is often difficult to get the Church to act like the Church?
Jeremiah’s declaration was not calling out the world for two evil things … it was calling out “my people,” God’s people.
We must be so careful that we do not substitute our ways (cracked cisterns) for His Ways (fountain of living water.) We must hold to the True Word of God no matter how unpopular that view is in our society.