The way Jesus did...

Read Luke 22.39-46

The days after Easter can be a time when many of us “get back to the grind.” That is, it can become the road to moving on all the while forgetting the magnitude of what was just celebrated.

If today slides into the realm of “moving on” we fall prey to moving beyond the glory of the empty tomb. So how do we move into the glorious truth of the empty tomb so as to live out the momentous truth of Easter?

Prayer…

In order for the glory of Easter to become the truth of our lives, we must always remember what Jesus stepped into before stepping up to the cross and stepping out of the tomb. We must always remember how He covered Himself in prayer.

Think about it, before He went to the cross so as to bring about the truth of Easter, what did Jesus do? He prayed. In fact, He told His disciples the action they needed most was prayer.

“When He arrived at the place, He said to them, ‘Pray that you may not enter into temptation.’” (40).

Jesus knew that when faced with turmoil, chaos and evil, the disciples would be tempted to either run away, or attempt to solve the problem on their own, and such is the case with us today. When the world confronts us how often do we attempt to fight against it on our own? And when we do this, when we seek resolution of our own doing we fail to fight with the most powerful source we have been given—prayer.

When we seek to solve life on our own we act as if we actually believe that prayer is not enough. We act as if prayer is our last solution when in fact, prayer should be our first response…just as it was for Jesus.

In the midst of the chaos and the eruptions of struggle and turmoil, those who know Jesus, need to pray. The world needs more prayer because it needs more Jesus.

“And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (44).

Let us this day seek to continue the Easter miracle by kneeling down in prayer. Let us face our troubles and struggles in life the way Jesus did…

“Jesus offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears…and was heard” (Heb 5.7).

In His Silence

Read Matthew 27.46; Romans 5.1-11

The weekend begins with the brutal, tragic, and paradoxically beautiful death of Jesus Christ. And then there is silence...

It is almost as if time stands still - everyone staring at the limp, beaten and broken body on the Cross. And then they watched as the body is taken down, placed in a tomb and left alone.

Everyone—followers of Jesus, haters of Jesus, those wondering who Jesus was—everyone sat in silence. They could do nothing but wait. And so they did: wait, wonder, hope. Is He the Christ, the Messiah? Or is He nothing more than a false promise, a dream breaker, hope wrecker?

The deafening sound of Saturday’s silence should be a day of contemplation for followers of Christ… Who is this man called Jesus? And what does He want with me?

Truth is, the sound of Saturday's silence is the rumbling of love that explodes from the empty cross of Sunday. It is the sound of the One who abandoned His throne so as embrace us in His arms of love. Saturday’s silence should remind us that the King of Heaven became the least of these so as to usher us into His joy...if only we embrace the silence.

What if today we started living the hope of tomorrow by praying for the world? What if we filled the silence with the sound of our prayers?

Today is a gift from God for in His silence He speaks boldly, asking us, how will we respond to the actions of Christ? Will we step into the shadow of the cross so as to transform the tragedy into a beautiful wedding feast? What if today we stepped into the silence so as to step out into the noise of the world and begin living out the hope of heaven today?

Take a moment and listen to the words from Downhere as they remind us of the truth that Christ was born to save a world torn apart.  

Let us step into the sound of Saturday's silence so that the eruption of Sunday's glorious love will explode from our words, our actions, our lives! Let us embrace the One King who poured out His heart for you and me…

His Passion

Read Hebrews 12.1-2, 28-29

What a week we enter into… Some may point to March for its madness of basketball, but for anyone who loves Jesus, March 2016 finds its madness in this week.

This week is known as Passion week. It is the week that all who love Jesus are freed from the bondage of sin, released from the darkness of evil and elevated to the throne of heaven as they are embraced by the amazing love of the One nailed to the cross.

The cross is the place where the grace of Christ’s kingdom meets with and overcomes the lost state of the kingdom of the world. This week we enter into the shadow of the cross where we find forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation…Amazing Love.

Only love justifies the suffering, only love’s suffering justifies the terrible distress of the world. Only His passion has the power to overcome our pain, darkness and fear. Only His passion offers everything we need…

Let us this week wrestle with the passion of the Christ so as to erupt with the insane love of Jesus. Let us this week wrestle for the passion of the Christ so as to become the insane love of Jesus for the sake of the world. Let us wrestle on the inside with His grace so that our lives might become His grace on the outside. Let us this week seek to offer our hearts to the One who offered His life.

Take a moment and listen to David Crowder’s Here’s My Heart and as you do, ask the Spirit to awaken your heart to the truth of this week...

Open your hearts, open His word and enter into His passion…Amen Jesus!

Do you believe?

Read Mark 9:14-29

We need to quit trying to figure out the impossible things that the Lord wants us to accept by faith. One of the greatest problems we face today is perspective. That is, we tend to focus on the situations of life instead of looking at the One who is in control of our situations.

How many of us can relate to the man in Mark 9? He is a man experiencing the troubles of life, a man who is need of a deliverer. And so what does he do? He turns to Jesus. Here standing in front of the Son of God the man begs Him, “If you can do anything, please help me.”

If You can do anything…Seems like a silly thing to say to Jesus, but how often do we say this very thing. It is like we are pleading to God in hopes that He is who He says He is. It is like we pray without really believing in the words we are praying. And how does Jesus respond…

“If you can!” The question is not “if Jesus can,” of course He can. The question is, do we actually believe He can?

Like the dad, Jesus turns to each of us and tells us that, “All things are possible for one who believes” (v 23). We have only to believe but if you are like me, when you hear these words, “all things are possible for one who believes” I have to admit that sometimes I struggle to believe.

I mean how many of us are willing to respond with the honesty of the dad? He said these words, which have been the encouragement of many since: “I do believe; help my unbelief!” 

Out of the honesty of his weakness, he cast himself on the Lord. “Yes, Lord, I do believe; but I feel my unbelief and I don't know how to handle it. Fill me with Your Spirit and make me believe.”

The moment he said those words, the moment he cast himself in his weakness back on the Lord was the very thing that Jesus wanted. Our Lord spoke the words, and his son was delivered. Jesus wants us to give everything to Him—to believe in nothing else before Him.

He wants us to risk stepping fully into His presence so that He might increase our faith.

Question is, do you believe?