Culmination of the Journey to Easter, 2017

RESURRECTION SUNDAY! 

HE IS RISEN!  HE IS RISEN INDEED!

He’s alive!  Hallelujah!

Reading for today:
Matthew 28
Mark 16:1-8
Luke 24:1-49
John 20:1-25

Easter is the most significant day in Christianity. We wouldn’t be Christians without Jesus’ Resurrection. Anyone can die – but only God Himself can raise the dead, including raising Himself from the dead! It is beyond belief, unfathomable. No wonder Yeshua’s followers didn’t get it – didn’t hear what he had repeatedly told them.... Who would?

I loved putting together puzzles as a kid – and even well into adulthood, even though I haven’t done one for while – but these passages provide us a puzzle worthy of challenge. Yes, indeed!  It is a perfect example of who said what, and whose testimony for precision is most credible. It’s also a model of what is most important to mention in one’s view is not equally important in another’s....   But – the main message is there, and is undeniable. The tomb was empty. Jesus did the impossible. He rose from the dead!

The Jews were looking for a conquering hero Messiah who would save them from the rule of the Romans and set up a kingdom on earth.  That was not the kind of King the Messiah was to be, so most of them missed Him … and are still waiting for His arrival.  But He came!  Lived!  Died!  Rose again!  Promised He will be back – and He will! 


MAJESTY
by Lola Cain

“A King who ruled in majesty”
That’s what people wanted Him to be!
No crown of thorns or whip of shame
No cross on which to bear our blame
No nails, no spear, no agony
No death upon a criminal’s tree
No burial in a borrowed grave
…No resurrection power to save!

Thank God for His eternal plan
for justifying fallen man
Providing the atoning sacrifice
sending his Son to pay the price.
Coming incarnate to earth to die
He redeemed His created from Satan’s lie
Thank you, Sacrificial Lamb
...for overriding the will of man.

The veil was rent! God’s plan complete!
We now can worship at His feet!
We enter His presence unafraid
by the blood that Jesus shed to save!
Thank the LORD, He rose again
victory over death to win
Thank Father, Son and Holy Ghost
…the anthem sung by heavenly hosts!

“He’s risen,” we shout. “HE’S RISEN INDEED!”
The cornerstone of our Christian creed
And coming once, He’ll come again
God’s promised victory over sin
“It’s finished,” His final words on the cross
Our redemption sealed. Our salvation bought.
Now He reigns eternally
…what both God and man wanted him to be…

“A KING WHO RULES IN MAJESTY!”

Thank You, LORD!

Love, Lola

           1 Cross

         +3 Nails

     =    4-given  (ours for the asking!)  

Humor for today:
Joseph of Arimathea was questioned about why he would be willing to give his prime location gravesite to a crucified, rejected man, and Joseph replied, “It won’t be a problem. He only needs it for the weekend.”

Journey to the Cross 2017, Day 25

Wednesday, Day 25                                  

Reading for today:
Matthew 22:41-46
Mark 12:35-37
Luke 20:41-44

Today’s passages are a reminder for me that the Gospels were first translated to Greek – then to English – and that those who translated these passages relied heavily on the Greek. At least that is the assumption I draw from their use of the reference to the promised Messiah as ‘Christ.’ Christos was the Greek word. I don’t understand why the word used is not Messiah – or Meshiach....  It’s a triviality – but Jesus was talking to Jews. Jews who knew that Messiah was to come...so logically, I presume His actual question referenced Messiah by the name they would identify with....

In this passage, He doesn’t state His claim to the title, He just asks them whose Son the Messiah (the Christ) is. They are Scholars of the Pentateuch and the writings of the prophets from the written ‘scriptures’ – what we now refer to as ‘The Old Testament.’ There is no hesitation in their response. Messiah is the Son of David.  In other words, the promised Messiah will come from David’s line.

Then Jesus asks them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord.’ ”

He challenges them to think deeper than they have ever thought. They are stymied. He is setting the stage. Very soon He will live out the reality of being Messiah.

He is also providing future readers a reminder. We already know from His prior questions to Peter: “Who do people say that I am?” and “Who do you say that I am?” that Yeshua/ Iesous/ Yesu/ Isa/ Jesus (by whatever name we know Him) is the Messiah/ Christos/ the Christ – the promised One. We know He is God/ YHWH/ Jehovah incarnate. The Great I Am; the One who was and is and is to come; LORD, The Alpha and the Omega, The Beginning and The End. In this age of Grace I take Him too much for granted. He, the LORD of Glory, allows us to come to Him as Abba – Daddy.

He leads me into Truth – His Truth – and His Truth is revealed most clearly with His incarnation – His being willing to come into the world He created to redeem what was lost through the separation that occurred in the garden, when ‘man’ decided to take matters into his own hands instead of being obedient to God’s one restriction – and we’ve fought God ever since with defiance and independence – a self sufficiency that says, “I can handle things on my own;” or even more insidiously, “I have a better way.”

That ‘better way’ claimed by many has led to the creation of most of the false religions that have come into being since His time of living on earth. To be a religion of Truth, it must teach that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life – the only way to God; and that Jesus was God incarnate  – ‘in the flesh’. All other religions are false – and the greatest ‘lies’ are the ones with the most truth mixed in. Satan is a liar, and he appears as an angel of light. He doesn’t care what people believe – as long as they don’t believe the Truth and the One who is Truth. Jesus is the complete representation of God. God Himself took on the form of man, and dwelled among us. Jesus was fully God and fully human. He was everything He claimed to be.

Many people – including false religions – will say that Jesus was a good man, or a prophet – but no more than that. Good men do not base the premise of their entire existence on a lie – and if Jesus was not who He professed to be, then He was the greatest liar of all time. It hurts to even write that – because HE IS TRUTH. It is Lucifer, the one who was created as a beautiful angel of God’s making, who defied God, and became the Great Deceiver – the ultimate Liar and Father of Lies. What a horrible title.

Lucifer/ Satan goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He wants God’s place. He will tolerate Atheism, but what he wants is worship – and one way he gets that worship is through false religions that do not place Jesus in His rightful place. It breaks my heart to see that deception  – yet, I will confess, I am not brave enough about sharing my faith, and sharing the Truth. I am far too aware of ‘offending someone’ or having them reject me along with the message, I suppose. Why else would I not tell those I love that Jesus loves them – and that He is the only Way to God?

We just recently had Missions week at church. Listening to the missionaries was a poignant reminder that there are people throughout the world that know accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior is a death sentence in the societies in which they live. Yet – when He is introduced to them, many hear the Truth and accept Him, knowing they will die for their faith. In reality, they probably would have been willing to die for the religion they left as well, so now that they know Truth, they recognize it as something truly worth dying for.

We live in such a different world in America. We don’t have a clue what it is like to truly be persecuted. I pray we never have to find out – but I also know I need to be more faithful to pray for the persecuted church.

Very soon in our journey Jesus will pay the price to become Redeemer. And He wants to be our Lord – but we are the only ones who can give Him that place in our lives.

Humor for today:
A Sunday School teacher was describing how Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt, when little Johnny interrupted, “My Mommy looked back once when she was driving, and she turned into a telephone pole.”