Easter

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
I would like to take this opportunity to remind you of the magnitude of Christ's resurrection as we prepare to celebrate Easter. Granted, we should be cognizant of the price paid upon Calvary, and the glory of His resurrection each and every day. But too often, we are not. Starting with the birth of Christ, all the way to His ascension, the intertwining of our observances is unavoidable.

In truth, we cannot have Christmas without Easter nor Easter without Christmas.

We are given a glimpse of this in Eph. 1:3-6: "Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: having predestined us into the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein HE has made us accepted in the beloved."

In the middle of this sentence, we see that we have been chosen before the foundation of the world or otherwise the "creation" of such. This shows us that God, before Adam and Eve fell, had created a plan for the redemption of man and the demonstration of His Glory.

So then Gen. 3:16 gives new light to God standing outside the boundaries of time and declaring exactly what will be. Now if God did all this so that we could exist in His presence and he declared holy, why do we insist on mere annual observances that our culture so easily maligns? Christmas is rife with advertising, driving us to buy this and buy that because what you buy defines your love for the people you buy for. Easter is an overflowing push to show off how well you can dress and indulge ourselves with treats and meats. It has become a generic celebration of new birth, and a celebration of the creation rather than the creator.

Why have we become so easily pushed away from realizing just what God did in lowering Himself to be born in a manger to a carpenter's family, live a life that was fraught with persecution, and then willingly go to a public execution upon the cross? So have we been blessed with all spiritual blessings just so we can pursue the world, and the things of it? Are our lives lived in circumspection so that others will see Christ in us or do we live to gain glory to ourselves from the individuals around us?

Remember who has redeemed you and exactly what it cost Him so that you do not stray from the faith and trample upon the work that He has done for you.