We just had a wonderful CHRISTmas and it has only been one week since we welcomed in a New Year.  I was out a few days ago and I heard someone make the comment that ‘Easter was almost here’.  Then another person said to them that’ Yea and it comes sooner this year then normal’.  I thought to myself, ‘Well how neat to be thinking about Jesus being born in about the same breath as thinking about why He died. Though we celebrate them separately, I feel sometimes the need to remind myself how the reality of it really did change the world and how it influences my life moment to moment every second of every day.  Back in   1989 I asked Jesus to help me write something to help me with that line of thinking.  I like to go back over it at Easter and thought I would share it with you this year.  I was surprised at how much time had passed since I first wrote it. Then I realized how neat it was that the words and thoughts of Jesus are so timeless. Their meaning to us may deepen but never become meaningless. 

 EASTER 1989

On Easter morning a NEW DAY dawned.  Not just another day on the calendar but a new day.  It was a great day of new understanding in the minds and hearts of the Disciples. It was a wonderful understanding of how alive the words spoken to them by Jesus really were.  They were richly filled with truth and life.  “Jesus had said to them Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  (John 2:19).  He had also told them that  “ I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live”. (John 11:25).  The disciples had heard Jesus say those words.  Now they saw the words He had spoken become alive and real to them. 

 Peter and Thomas and the other disciples had fear, denial, and unbelief in their hearts when Jesus died.  It looked to them as if the end of the kingdom of God had come.  Everything they believed Jesus to be to them was gone.  After Jesus rose again He walked and talked with them.  Jesus helped them understand that it was not the end but a new beginning. The kingdom of God had come and would remain.  Jesus explained to them that His kingdom was not physical but spiritual.  He had come as their saviour but would leave them for a time but when He came back it would be as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.    Joy, Faith, and Victory broke out among the disciples.  They were led and strengthened by the Holy Spirit and the church of God broke out all over spreading the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the truth and life that are in His WORDS. 

 The same is true today.  We have the same good news, the same WORDS of Jesus and the same Holy Spirit.  We also have the same Joy, Faith and Victory because the same Jesus lives today.

 To me, this Easter 1989, that is what the season of Easter means.  Living with Joy, Faith, and Victory in my heart.  Jesus reigned over death and sin and sickness and disease and all the ways of the enemy.  Jesus does the same today in me, in my heart, in my live.  I am part of Easter, because Easter is apart of me.  

 EASTER 2004

Here we are today in 2004.  I’m even more excited to see what Jesus will do in my life and how much more I will learn about the truth of His WORDS.  Quickly I just want to add one more scripture that came to my mind as I was typing this.  MY Easter thought for 2004. (Romans 14:17)

“For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost”.  

What wonderful WORDS of hope.