None More Important Than This Day........

What could be the best and most effective way to start off an article about Easter? We could name the usual suspects such as Passover, Good Friday, The Passion of the Christ and so on and so forth. Since this blog is coming from my heart and my mind, I thought we would do it my way: By starting off with the creation story from Scripture. Genesis 1:1 simply states, “In the beginning, God…….” stop right there. This is what I need to establish up front before anything else: God always was, God always is and God always will be. He is eternally existent throughout all time and space. Simply put: He has no beginning and no end. This truth presents an impossibility to those who don’t know the LORD personally. The finite human mind cannot perceive of something being eternally existent. We tend to think linear: As in a straight line which connects point A to point B. To us, it’s just not possible for the line between A and B to extend beyond A in a negative direction – it has to start somewhere. This is not so with God – He always was. He not only extends beyond point A – He also dismisses any chance of a point B. In linear nutshell terms, God would be an eternal, never ending line in either direction. Allow me to blow your mind even more here: God is not only the straight line – He is also existent throughout all of the other lines that intersect our linear line of God. In other words: Think ‘spherical’ for a moment. Imagine a very calm body of water. Now drop a huge rock right in the center of the water and watch what happens: You’ll notice all of the waves emanating outward from the point of impact like radio waves. This is how God eternally encompasses His creation. Only difference is: God doesn’t emanate like radio waves – He’s everywhere already – He is omnipresent.

I make mention of all this for good reason: For as much as we may try to, no one can ever fully understand Almighty God. For those of you who share my faith and are saved Christians, you know full well already that at the precise moment when you said ‘yes’ to Christ and became a saved believer , God the Holy Spirit came to live and dwell within you – and sealed you for all eternity (Ephesians 1:13-14). Heaven became your eternal home at that moment. This same Holy Spirit who seals you until the day of redemption also guides you into the truth at all times. Whether or not we are being receptive to Him when the truth is being told is another matter altogether. I can write a full blog just on discernment alone. The Holy Spirit not only guides us into the truth, but also prompts us to do things in our daily lives and all for the kingdom of God. He also pokes us and convicts us when we’re doing something wrong. I certainly cannot speak for all Christian men when I say this but – remember the last time you found yourself flipping through the channels late at night maybe after the wife had fallen asleep – only to stop on that one program that had a screen full of bikinis? (No doubt, it was either Telemundo or Univision……) The longer you may have stayed mesmerized on that channel, the more the Holy Spirit began to convict you and say to you, “Um sir…..you may want to either turn this off or turn on Sports Center rather quickly”. If this happens, then this is probably a sure sign that the Spirit does live within you. If there is zero conviction and you shrug it off as simply “being a man”, then you may want to get before God and make sure you’re really a believer.

So what does all this have to do with Easter? Good question – sit back, relax and prepare yourself for my tangent of an answer. Only a perfect and Holy God could have made a way for us to get back in favor with Him. For those of you who may read this today and you do not know the Lord personally (in other words: if you’re not a Christian), please allow me to tell you a brief story. This story is true and the characters are real. How do I know this? The main character of the story lives within me in the Person of the Holy Spirit and confirms it to me every single day. Here it goes: God created the heavens and the earth roughly 6,000 years ago. Shortly after creating the first two people in history, they sinned against God by disobeying a direct command: Do not eat from the tree in the midst of the garden or else you will die. Before this downfall, Adam and Eve had perfect fellowship with God. They walked with Him, they talked with Him – He was their God and they were His people. There was nothing hindering the relationship between them. After they sinned, God cut them off from His personal fellowship with Him. After proclaiming curses on the man, the woman and the serpent (the devil who tempted them to sin in the first place), He also made a promise: He would someday make a way for them (humanity) to return to the same fellowship that they once had. He would require a blood sacrifice – but not just any sacrifice. It (or He) had to be a perfect sacrifice. It had to come from a perfect sacrificial Lamb. So throughout the generations, God manifest Himself to His prophets and kings. He laid down a series of 613 laws throughout the ages. All of these laws and festivals and sacrifices merely pointed to one thing: The coming of Yeshua – the Messiah – the One who would deliver the people from their sin. So about 4,000 years after the fall in the garden of Eden, God knew the appointed time had come. He sent Himself in the form of man. He sent God the Son, Jesus Christ. The sacrifice had to be a perfect one; therefore Jesus Christ lived a life that was sin-free. He was fully God yet, fully man. He had to be fully God in order to be perfect – and He had to be fully man in order to shed blood for the propitiation (or satisfaction) for sins. About 30 years into His life, Jesus’ ministry of redemption officially began. He began to tell people that the only way to God was through Himself. He chose His disciples who would eventually be the foundation of Christianity as we know it today. Three years into His ministry, the leaders of the day began to hate Him because of the way He was seemingly turning the Word of God on its ear. What they didn’t know was that He was fulfilling it right before their eyes. Just like the Scriptures had said, He was taken and crucified. He died a horrible death. He took on the sins of the world at that moment on the cross. The moment He gave up the ghost and died, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom. This veil housed the Ark of the Covenant behind it. The ark was blocked from public view as no one was allowed to come near it or else they could die. Once per year on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), the high priest would go in there with blood sacrifices to ‘make atonement’ for the peoples’ sins – until the next year. What Christ did on the cross completely wiped out the sacrificial system. He has now become our eternal high priest. But here’s the most important part of the whole story: He didn’t stay dead – three days later after they placed His body in a cave-tomb, He rose again! Jesus has now given mankind the opportunity to get back to God and have that fellowship with Him that Adam and Eve once had. Christ literally became the bridge that connects God with man. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what Easter is all about. It is resurrection Sunday! Without the atoning life, death, burial and glorious resurrection of our Lord, we would all still be dead in our sins and on our way to hell.

So the question is: Which category of man do you fall under: Saved or unsaved? There are only two kinds of people in the world: Those who are going to heaven (Christians) and those who are going to hell (unsaved). If you do not know the Lord like we do, there is still time and hope for you. All you need to do is repent and believe. Believe in your heart that Jesus Christ did all these things to save you from what we all deserve: Eternal damnation in hell. If you take one thing from all this today, let it be this: God loves you and wants you to know Him personally. He also wants to welcome you home into heaven someday. Please come home to Him – He waits with open arms ready to do nothing but love on you. Happy resurrection day.