During the week, I've been reading the story of Jesus' life from His entrance on the donkey to the empty tomb, in preparation for Easter. And do you know what hit me as I was thinking about His life? When we hear the story for the one hundredth time, our minds (and our hearts) automatically want to skip to the end of the story-- the part where He is alive, and has defeated sin and death. So often we, or at least I, don't want to think about the suffering He endured for me. The bloody welts of the whips. The crown of thorns dug into His head. The nails in His hands and feet, bleeding and ripping His flesh as He tried to be able to breathe, pushing Himself up, only bringing on more pain. It's appalling, the way He died. And then He faced God's wrath. . . for us. I don't know why I don't want to think about this very hard. I suppose maybe it's that I feel guilty. Because I don't deserve to live when I'm such a sinner, yet He was so perfect and died like that. But I always realize the beauty of it all. We're fallen. He's perfect. We don't deserve it, but He is love, and so He took the wrath for us.
So we should not ignore the fact that He went through that suffering. In fact, we should ponder it. And then return to Him, overflowing with thanks for the life he has given us.
Have a wonderful Easter, overflowing with thanks to our Savior!
Love and a hug,
Lindsey
Amen. Lovely post.
ReplyDelete~ Abby
amen amen. you are a really talented, and insightful, writer. :)
ReplyDeleteAmen. <3 This is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteGreat! :)
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ReplyDeleteSpeak the truth, Lindsey. This actually reminded me of CORE (Christians On a Revolutionary Edge) on Thursday and what we talked about. Easter always comes along, and along with it comes good old guilt and depression. I always feel like a worthless dirt bag living on this earth, getting things that I don't deserve from a Lord who's love I don't deserve. I hear the whole easter story and my prayers are filled with "I know I'm worthless and don't deserve your love, but you gave it to me anyways.", but I realized that everyone says that when God doesn't see us as that. God looks at us and says "My child: perfect, blameless, spotless." Easter isn't about being depressed during the death part and then rejoicing during the resurrection, but rejoicing constantly that God would go to the point to send his son to die on a cross because he wants us in his family. It changed my whole point of few of Easter forever.
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