I don't wanna go one more day
Without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don't wanna spend my whole life asking,
"What if I had given everything,
instead of going through the motions?"
lyrics by Matthew West
On Easter, we can get so focused on Easter clothes and Easter baskets that we really forget what we are celebrating. Jesus suffered, died on a cross, rose again on the third day and conquered death. Why? The wages of sin is death and Jesus paid our wages with His body and with His blood because the God of the Universe wanted to have a relationship with us. We could never have been good enough, gone to church enough, helped others enough to be able to come into the presence of the Lord. We are just not that good. Only through Jesus and his righteousness are we able to come to Him and have a relationship with God. "His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to himself THROUGH JESUS CHRIST. And this gave Him great pleasure. So we praise God for the wonderful kindness He has poured out on us because we belong to His dearly loved Son. He is so rich in kindness that He purchased our FREEDOM through the blood of His Son, and our sins are forgiven" (Ephesians 1:5-7).
Next year, I have decided that I am going to really celebrate Easter instead of going through the motions. On 4th of July, we go all out with fireworks to celebrate our freedom as a nation. Why should we not also teach our kids to celebrate Easter with the same enthusiasm because of the freedom that Jesus died for so that we would no longer be slaves to the law? "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free " Galatians 5:1. The freedom comes from when we realize we could never be good enough to get to heaven or good enough to serve Him and that "the wages of sin is death, BUT the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). So let's celebrate, with passion, all that God has done for us on Easter and every day instead of just going through the motions!!!!
