Not Just Eggs and Peeps....It's The Cross

This past week I was challenged to share a verse a day for 7 days that meant something to me or that I loved. I started out with my very favorite verse which is I Thessalonians 5:16-18. After that I went to some other great ones that I have clung to when life turned ugly. Then yesterday I stumbled onto one I hadn't really noticed before. It's in I Corinthians 1:18.....

"The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction. But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God."

Tomorrow is Easter and also my birthday. The older I get, sometimes I think the more jaded I get. I started reading that verse over and over and it started to tug at me. I've decided that it's because I think I would be less jaded if I could really learn what it means to live in the power of the cross daily!!! God's power became mine to use the moment that Jesus took all of my sin on Himself on the cross, died for it, and 3 days later rose from the dead. What that means for my days is that I don't need to live in defeat, be ruled by my emotions, or give in to the chaos that the world around me has become. Jesus died so that I may have life and have it more abundantly!! 

So, why don't I live it more abundantly? 

I think I'm a lot like the squirrel that I saw out my window this morning,,,,he was trying so hard to simply get across the street to where he wanted to be but every time he came out from underneath the car to go a pesky blackbird would swoop at him over and over until he either went back under the car or went a completely different direction. That's what satan does to me everyday! I start my day reading in the Bible how to use God's power and I feel like I start out knowing where I want to be and then the pesky swooping starts....the never ending check lists, "mom, I need", the cancer is back, they're getting a divorce, another school has been shot up and kids with it, people who claim to know Jesus that do such very wrong things!! And it goes on and on....

All the while Jesus is whispering (because He never yells) reminders to my mind that He died for all of this on a cross so long ago and even though there are times that He seems silent, He needs us to remember that HE IS NOT DONE!!!! No matter how many times that black bird swoops....HE IS NOT DONE!!! 

Tomorrow is Easter and it's so much more than colored eggs and candy Peeps.....it's a cross of wood where Jesus died so that we don't have to live a jaded and cynical life because of all the swooping! 

"And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God." Ephesians 3:18-19

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