Devotionals

Looking Toward Easter

by Martha Kinney
03/25/18
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Next week is Easter. Out comes the colored eggs the new clothes and the beautiful flower decorations. Baby chicks and bunnies adorn our decorations. These are the signs of Easter.

It seems fitting that Easter comes in the Springtime as Christ's resurrection is the sign of new life in Him. But let's look at these symbols in a different way. Colored eggs and new clothes don't change what is inside them. The Easter eggs are still just eggs and the new clothes are just coverings for us; we are still the same people. The baby chicks and bunnies are new life just as salvation brings new life to us. But the flowers tell the Easter story.

Before they pop up out of the ground they are just bulbs. They must be buried in the earth before the life in them is seen just as Jesus had to die and be buried in order for us to be able to obtain new life. Once the bulbs are buried the new life begins to show itself; first with green shoots and then with buds and finally with flowers.

That is how it is for us. When we chose to become a child of God we die to the old way of life. The life of Jesus is planted in our hearts in the form of the Holy Spirit and we notice little changes beginning to happen. We have a new attitude, we see things with a different view, we notice the beauty of life all around us. Subtle changes at first. Then as we walk with Him we find not only our attitudes change but so do our actions. And like the flowers we all begin to really bloom according to our own personal relationship with Him.

The other thing that Easter announces with its new life is the fact that Jesus' sacrifice was acceptable and complete. That is why Easter is so important. Without the resurrection Jesus is just another good person who was murdered for His faith in God. The fact that we serve a risen Savior is proof that He was the perfect sacrifice and He did all that was required to attain a permenate relationship with God. The only thing left is for us to acknowledge that we are the guilty one who put Him to death and that He willingly paid our debt. We then need to accept the pardon offered us by God because of what Jesus did.

So Palm Sunday can be our time of thanking God for Jesus' gift of salvation and acknowledging Him as the true Savior of the world. We can look back over all Jesus suffered for us from His agony in the garden, the desertion of His friends and followers, the beatings and mocking. And the taking of the world's sin; including ours, that caused God to have to look away. See His death but more importantly the validation of His sacrifice by His resurrection. That should make Palm Sunday a day of thanksgiving and Easter the day of celebration we all look forward to.

Lent is a time of sober contemplation of what God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit did in order to offer us salvation. Sin had separated us from them and caused our spiritual death. Remember Jesus didn't come to make bad people good, He came to make dead people [us] alive.

Have a Blessed Easter.