Consider this experience. Your close family member passed away. The time between his death and the funeral seemed like a blur. There were decisions to make, family members to contact, important papers to find, an obituary to write, funeral arrangements to make, a memorial service to plan, and other family and friends to attend. You hardly had time to even begin to process what happened. You talked about it and told the story over and over to each person who asked. But it hardly seemed real.

Then the day of the funeral came. It was a difficult and emotional time but somehow the busyness seemed to be just distracting enough to keep the most weighty thoughts and feelings at bay. After the graveside service you returned home. Most of those who had been attentive went home as well. By evening all the guests had gone and you were left alone; and there came a deadening silence. The reality began to set in. Your mind drifted some thinking about your own loss, but then it would drift to consider the darkness of the night and the grave that was now left unattended. You thought about him, his body that is, being left alone in the ground, in the night. Where was he really? How was he where he was? When had he arrived?

Read More

Yes, it was the will of the Lord to crush him. But we’re also reminded that when Jesus offered himself up freely as an offering for our guilt and sin, that he would see his offspring and prolong his days and that the will of the Lord would prosper in his hand.

Read More

Jesus demonstrated grace toward the scribes and Pharisees. You are probably thinking, ”Grace? There seems to be nothing gracious about it.” But you see, there is. It is gracious for God to confront our sin, even call us out. Jesus loved them enough to share with them the sinfulness of their thinking and behavior. This confrontation was necessary. He was about to die because of sin, the sin that caused this kind of thinking and behaving. Don’t think Jesus was drawing down on them in retaliation; because he wasn’t. Jesus was exposing them for who they were. And left unrepentant, well, their judgement was clearly stated: “How are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” That was a rhetorical question with the answer being: they would not escape hell!

Read More

But here is the good news! You see, Jesus kept both of these commandments perfectly. Jesus perfectly and completely loved God and His neighbor. Yet, what was Jesus heading towards by week’s end? The cross. What would he do there? Die. Why is this important? Because if Jesus perfectly obeyed, He should not die, yet He did. In this we see what Paul taught in 2 Corinthians 5:21 when he wrote, “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Christ perfectly obeyed in the place of His people and also died a sinner’s death in their place to satisfy the wrath of God towards their sin. What good news this is!

Read More

Passion Week, as well as every other week, is best lived with an understanding
of the worthiness of God to be loved and longed for by those who are unworthy to be loved
and longed for by Him.

Read More

As you meditate on this text give consideration to the new abode of God, your heart. Think of its condition. Is it a place of prayer and genuine worship? Are you questioning the authority of God in your life? Are you carrying out all of the things that seem to be the right things to do without really understanding or even caring about the purposes and plan of God? Are you robbing God by being more concerned with your own welfare than you are His work?

Remember the bold act of Jesus on the cross, an act that brought change and continues to bring change! Does your life reflect that change?

Read More

We will be reminded that our sense of fairness is fickle. We will be reminded that we still struggle with seeking to exact our sense of justice on and in the affairs of our lives. We will be reminded that we should not want to press the issue of righteous justice as it pertains to any of us. In other words, we really don’t want what we deserve. And, we will be reminded of some of the unique characteristics of God’s grace, a grace that both gives and takes away, a grace that is delivered in unfairness but deliverers fairness, and a grace that shows evidence of hate and love.

Read More