My son, foreign missionary, preacher of righteousness, seminary professor called, I said, “I am drenched with thoughts of Easter.” My saintly mother who knew little theology, but committed to Christ, wanted her children to celebrate the greatest events in the history of the world, Christmas and Easter. So little money, but she always made arrangements for us to have a large chocolate egg with our name on it. The theologian said, the twelve greatest words in the English language, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Forget the “theatrics” for the word Easter. We all know about that, far more important than the day of Christ's resurrection is celebrated, His resurrection from the dead. He lived a perfect life, died the sacrificial-atonement death on the cross, but our faith would be in vain (1 Corinthians 15) if He had not risen from the dead. “He Is Risen”, (Matthew 28) We are close to Jesus until the last.
Modern Christians lived in a delusion land, almost as pretentious as Disney land. They truly believe that God will measure up to their expectations. Their Christianity is measured by dos and don'ts, a scale of works, pluses and minuses, the pluses must exceed the minuses in their theology equation. If you ask one of these “church members” if they are saved, you get the words, “I'm doing the best I can”, I don't drink alcohol, gamble, sleep around. Some pretenders ask why there is so much blood in the Bible, because there is so much sin. Life is in the blood. (Leviticus 17:11) and the blood of animals atoned for sin before the cross. God is serious business, is not messing around with you. His own son, faithful to his father, shed his own blood on the cross, the wrath of God, sufficient for the sin of the world.
Twice before, two earthly fathers had known such sacrifice. Jepthah, fulfilling a vow to God. Abraham, fulfilling a vow to God. (Abraham, his son of promise, Isaac, carrying wood on his back up Mount Moriah to be a burned offering to God. 2000 years later, Jesus, carrying a part of a cross up the same Mount Moriah, God making a change, giving Abraham an animal for sacrifice, God sacrificing His own son, sin of the world.)
“To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky”
Hymn: Love of God
There is no intimacy, no love, like the “inner court” security found in the mind of a human being, transformed-redeemed by the salvation experience with God through Jesus Christ. Almost mystically, just as God breathed His genetics into Adam, a new creature... your senses are never the same again, seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, tasting. You are content to spend your life a living epistle forever grateful to be chosen, separated from the world. It is not necessary to beg you to attend a service where you worship God, where you give of your means to God, serve God by serving others. You can hardly wait to remember His sacrifice for you at His table, the cup symbolic of His shed blood, covering your sins. The loaf, symbolic of His healing you for every sickness.
Even after salvation, you still have a body, you are still influenced by the world, flesh, devil. It is only by presenting your body as a living sacrifice transformed, that you can know the serenity of Easter. (Romans 12:1-2) The most miserable of those around us who have heard the Word, pretending, attempting to conform, both to the church and the world. It is a losing proposition, once you have known the truth, that will set you free. (John 8:32, 17:17) Jesus is the truth. Truth , compromised with evil, the greatest sin of all. Victory is in overcoming the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment