March 2005
 The
last Sunday in this month is Easter Sunday.
The whole body of Christians will be celebrating
the resurrection of Jesus Christ. With
Mel Gibson's film The Passion of Christ
still fresh in our minds, we can't help
but remember Christ's suffering at Calvary
three days prior to His resurrection.
What Is Your View?
Easter was originally
the name of a pagan festival honoring
Eostre, a Teutonic goddess of light and
spring. At the time of the vernal equinox
(the day in the spring when the sun crosses
the equator and day and night are of equal
length), sacrifices were offered in her
honor.
Our society views Easter
from many different perspectives. I don't
personally know anyone who worships Eostre
today, but there is the Easter bunny story.
Not until the eighth century was the word
used for the annual Christian celebration
of the resurrection of Christ. We celebrate
it on the first Sunday following the full
moon that occurs after March 21st. For
Christians, Jesus resurrected on the first
day of the week which is Sunday.
In the King James Version
of the Bible, the word for Easter is a
mistranslation of pascha, the Greek word
for "Passover". 1
The festival of Passover commemorates
the people of Israel's departure from
slavery in Egypt. They sacrificed a lamb
and placed it's blood on the lintel and
door posts of their houses, so God would
"pass over" their houses when
He destroyed all the firstborn of Egypt.
2
Over fifteen hundred
years later, Jesus was crucified in the
city of Jerusalem during the Passover
week. Jesus ate the Passover meal together
with His disciples on the eve of His death.
Like the blood of the lamb that saved
the Hebrew people from destruction in
Egypt, the blood of Jesus, as the ultimate
Passover sacrifice, redeems us from the
power of sin and death. 3
Lord, Open Our Eyes!
The analogy concerning
Jesus as our Passover Lamb could be enlarged
greatly, but it would go beyond the scope
of this article. Nevertheless, it is very
important to see and develop the knowledge
of God's view of Easter. Our Heavenly
Father had a plan from the foundation
of the world to save His people by the
blood of the Lamb. 4
This plan is known in Scripture as the
manifold wisdom of God. 5
Christ and the church is considered a
great mystery. 6
God's secret plan has now been revealed
to us; it is a plan centered on Christ,
designed long ago according to his good
pleasure. 7
When I was growing up
in Texas, I went to church with my parents
until I went off to college. During those
years, I went to Sunday school, sang the
hymns and could quote the Apostles Creed
from memory, but I never spiritually understood
the Good News of Christ and the power
of the Holy Spirit. I can't remember ever
praying for God to reveal His love and
wisdom to me, although He promises that
if we ask for wisdom, He will give it
liberally without fail. 8
The Apostle Paul prays
that the Father of glory would reveal
to us His secret plan through the spirit
of wisdom and understanding, so that we
might grow in our knowledge of God's love.
Let's pray with Paul that our hearts will
be flooded with light so that we can understand
the wonderful future, the glorious inheritance
and the incredible power God has promised
for us who believe. 9
Our prayer is simply
for God to reveal His love to us. As we
spiritually understand the sacrifice of
Jesus Christ through His death, burial
and resurrection, our eyes are opened
to God's expression of love for us all.
Let's pray with Paul that our roots may
go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous
love. And may we have the power to understand,
as all God's people should, how wide,
how long, how high, and how deep His love
really is. That we may experience the
love of Christ. That we be filled with
the fullness of life and power that comes
from God's love. 10
Reflecting On God's Love
The understanding of
God's love grows in our heart, as we reflect
on all He has done for us. One of the
purposes of the annual Passover festival
is to remember God's loving deliverance
by symbolically acting it out with the
Passover meal as described in Exodus 12.
Similarly, we celebrate the Lord's Supper
regularly in remembrance of God's love
through the blood and body of Jesus, reflecting
upon our Lord's death until he returns.
By celebrating these ordinances, the meditations
of our heart becomes not only a physical
expression of God's love for us, but an
expression of our faith and love for God.
As Christians, our meditations
are to magnify the death, burial and resurrection
of Jesus Christ. He took our judgment
for sin and forgave us for past, present
and future sins 2000 years ago. To the
contrary, many Christians magnify their
sins, not partaking in the Lord's Supper
because they are so sin conscious. They
misinterpret Paul's admonition to the
church in Corinth, Greece, to not partake
in the Lord's Supper unworthily. It had
become an unruly love feast, done unworthily,
not in remembrance of the Lord's death.
Paul urged them to examine their behavior
and to see themselves in light of the
blood and body of Christ. 11
As a result of rightly understanding the
Lord's body, they would not feel unworthy
and act in an unworthy manner. They were
to view themselves dead with Christ and
alive with Him as a new creation, a whole
new species of being. 12
If anyone has a reason
to condemn themselves for past sins, I
do. The murders that old man "Tex"
committed thirty-five years ago could
have consumed me if the Lord had not opened
my eyes to His great love for me. When
I sin, I acknowledge it and by faith receive
God's forgiveness supplied at Calvary.
As I live with the revelation of God's
love for me, the attitude of my mind is
renewed to my old man's death and the
spiritual resurrection of my new man with
Christ, which is created in righteousness
and true holiness. 13
I see myself as having an entirely new
identity, as God sees me, rescued from
the power of darkness and brought into
the Kingdom of His dear Son. Jesus purchased
my freedom with his blood and has forgiven
all my sins. 14
A Time Of Celebration
This Easter can be a
time of celebration when we come to understand
our resurrection with Christ. The Apostle
Paul considered all else as garbage when
compared to his experience of oneness
with Christ and His resurrection. He desired
to learn what it means to suffer with
Christ, sharing in His death, so that
somehow he could experience the resurrection
from the dead. 15
This is why we pray for the spirit of
wisdom and revelation in the knowledge
of God's love and the power of His resurrection.
Let me assure you that
it is not boring to have a mind filled
with God's love for us. On the contrary,
it is the most exciting life of freedom
that you can possibly experience. Nothing
compares to the promises we have in Christ.
Everyday of my life is filled with the
presence of God's love. The love of God
has been poured out in our hearts by the
Holy Spirit who is given to us. 16
The revelation of God's
love is the healing agent for every area
of our lives. The wisest man of all time,
King Solomon, said: "Where there
is no revelation, the people cast off
restraint." 17
In other words, without a vision
of God's redemptive revelation, we perish
from the unrestrained penalty and power
of sin, which is a life of continual pain.
But with the vision, we have progressive
healing working in our life on a daily
basis.
We know those areas of
our life that are so glaringly wrong can
only be restrained by this heavenly vision.
This is why we celebrate, speaking to
ourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing and making melody in our
heart to the Lord; giving thanks always
for all things unto God and the Father
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
18
Jesus says, "For
God so loved the world that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whoever believes
in Him should not perish but have everlasting
life. 19 If you
haven't, won't you believe in Christ and
receive His everlasting life today?
A Prayer For You...
"Dear Father, I
believe that Your Son, Jesus Christ, paid
the price for my sin with His blood, was
buried and rose from the dead. I desire
a rich experience of knowing Your love
for me with real certainty this Easter.
I receive the Spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of Your love. Fill my
thoughts with a desire for Your Word,
calling, inheritance and power, so that
I don't spend time worrying about earthly
things. Amen!"
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