My little brother, My little sister,
I know you will celebrate My resurrection next Sunday with great fervor at the fellowship
of followers you do life with. I love the worship which will be invoked, the music which will be sung, and the sermons which will be preached on My behalf.
I know each person who will be received into My kingdom all over the world this week as the good news of My rising from the dead is shared. Many will have special dinners in their homes with their families to continue the celebration.
In the beginning, however, it wasn’t like this, my little friend.
In eternity, I was in heaven, in perfect alignment with the Father and the Holy Spirit. I was holding the entire universe together with one word.
We dispatched angels to protect and fight for different people and different causes. More angels swirled around My throne, calling out, “Holy, Holy, Holy, ” declaring Who I was. Everything was perfect.
Yet I knew all was not well on your planet. After your first ancestors Adam and Eve chose not to believe Me and ate the forbidden fruit, they struggled with their sin and guilt. Every person I have ever made since them also struggled with their sin and guilt. And I saw you struggling.
I’d made you perfectly in My image. Yet, over many years, your decisions and the decisions of others wore on your young innocence and produced a lifetime of consequences that you couldn’t overcome. I knew I could not stay in My perfect heaven and leave you in your condition.
I had to leave heaven and do something for you that you could not do for yourself.
I had to come down and die for your sin. It was the beginning of the end of your bondage to sin.
It was more than fascinating to ball up the limitless power that I held into the form of a little crying baby. I’d made every baby who ever lived. Then I had to become one! That is a miracle I hope to share with you and the rest of heaven once we are all in.
My little sister, My little brother, I saw how difficult life was on this planet which I’d made, but I had never experienced it myself. I never smelled, tasted, and touched this planet through human limitations until I became a human being myself and began to experience the world I made. My compassion expanded as I saw people crying and heard the groans of people hurting.
What you experience as you walk through life now has more meaning since I have also walked where you have walked.
When I began My ministry, I became fixated on getting to Golgotha to die for you. I knew from the beginning that this was what I came to earth for.
I taught because I needed to reset what people had learned about Me. I healed because people were begging for relief from their afflictions. I cleansed the temple because the religious rulers of that day became guardians over a corrupted system of religious rituals. I’d wanted them to be guardians of the hearts of My people and proclaimers of My love and eternal truths instead.
Above all that I came to do while I was here, I needed to get to My crucifixion to deliver you, My friend. Yes, you are My friend because all that I have disclosed to you belongs to you forever.
In My mind, I could clearly see the humiliation and the horrific torture that was coming
My way.
I knew that the religious rulers had bribed Judas Iscariot with the price of a common slave to betray Me at a time when they could arrest Me without interference from the crowd. I knew that Pilate would hand Me over for execution because he couldn’t risk any more investigations from Rome for complaints and rioting among the Jews. I knew that I would be brutally scourged with a device that was infernally inhumane in the pain it could inflict. I who was formerly clothed in righteousness and mercy loathed the thought that I would be hung on that cross stripped of My dignity and clothing for the whole world to see.
The passion that got Me all the way to the crucifixion was My burning love for you. I could not stand to stay in heaven any longer and keep you out. My love sought the best possible way to separate you from your sin so that you could enter My heaven and never have to leave. I agreed with My Heavenly Father that you were worth the price of My blood so that We could enter your life and never have to leave.
It was done, as the law required. And it stands done. We now celebrate My resurrection.
My beloved friend, now my spiritual little sibling, I love you dearly. And I would do it again to make sure that your guilt is assuaged and your sin is abolished. Come aside from the noise of My celebration this week and let us speak of our love for one another, for I still love you with all My heart.
By My perfect life and sacrifice, I have wrested ownership of your planet back from the enemy who manipulated it out of the hands of your ancestors. I am now Lord of heaven and earth. You can trust and follow me completely.
I am risen. I have risen indeed.
Joyfully yours,
Jesus, Your Older Half-Brother
Based on Matthew 28:1-10; Luke 24:1-48; John 15:15 and chapter 20; Deuteronomy 29:29; Zechariah 11:12-13; Romans 4:25 & 8:29
To you, my faithful reader, I appreciate your hanging in there with me while I continue to work my way through the world of social media and building a platform. I hope you have received some measure of inspiration, support, encouragement, exhortation, and challenge in your Christian walk as a single person, for that is my intent in praying about and writing this weekly blog.
I have two announcements for you!
1) NOTICE: Today was my last post on a Sunday. Starting next week, April 1, 2018, (I’m not kidding!) I will no longer post on Sundays. My first post for April is scheduled for Tuesday, April 3 at 6:00A, EST. If you stop by next Sunday looking for a blog, you won’t find one! Come back Tuesday, April 3, to find my next post for you, my single Christian friend.
2) I am on the launch team for the newest, FREE online women’s Bible study for Sarah Koontz of Living By Design Ministries. It is entitled Wisdom Whispers and is a character study based on the life of King Solomon. My review is up at https://livingbydesign.org/wisdomreviews/.
I have had an amazing time of fun, learning, and encouragement being on this enthusiastic launch team. And I learned much to apply to my life from the wise-but-not-so-wise King Solomon. One of Sarah’s attitudes toward the wisest king who ever lived reflected my attitude toward him: “I was captivated by his wisdom and confused by his life choices” (Day 1). And I loved Day 22, where Sarah describes wisdom as something beautiful that I detested as a child, but came to love and appreciate as an adult. Intrigued?
Wisdom Whispers starts the Monday after Easter, April 2 and will last for 31 days based on a five-day-on, two-day-off format. It’ll be here before you know it, so be sure to sign up today! Sign up for it here: https://livingbydesign.org/wisdom/. I will have a post dedicated to this wonderful Bible study early in April, ladies, so be on the lookout for it! #wisdomwhispers #livingbydesignministries #kingsolomon #sarahekoontz @livingbydesignministries
