Post by Rob W. Case on Apr 4, 2010 20:07:04 GMT -6
Resurrection Day-- A day of Opportunity for Healing and a New Life
In 33 A.D. the most significant event took place that would forever change human history. This event was the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was significant in that it had multiple purposes. For one, it was the end result of a strategy that would reveal itself as the ultimate and most selfless act of love. Jesus died for us, so that we could be presented as righteous to God the father on the Day of Judgment. One day we will become like Jesus (1 John 3:2) and share in the Kingdom he is preparing for all who accept him as their savior.
The Ultimate act of Love:
What is compelling about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is when you look at it with a sense of knowing what was involved, and by measuring the destructive nature of human kind in contrast with the nature of God, the magnitude of God’s love breaks through in a profound and impactful way. Do you think that for one second, God wanted to send his son to die for a creation that was violent, corrupt, and only thought of evil all the time? Consider this….
Genesis 6:5
5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
Genesis 6:11-13
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
God destroyed the earth with a flood because mankind was hopelessly wicked, that if left alone, it could be accurately said that every human on earth would have progressively gotten worse and worse, until they destroyed one other to the point of extinction.
Genesis 6:6 says….
6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
And so, God did something about it…
Genesis 7:22-23
22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
For God to regret having made mankind was something profound. With a rebellious angel that was condemned and thrown down to the earth, and a creation that unsuspectingly fell to the level of that rebellious angel that led to their downfall, human kind was left in a hopeless mess. This is what society came to without God and without his influence. Without God, humankind gets worse and worse because there is no structure, purpose, or direction in their lives. In grace, God gave the people in Noah’s day a chance. Noah warned them, but everybody scoffed, laughed, and treated Noah like he was insane. And so, God wiped them all out, and started over again with Noah’s family. As the population grew, and as the details came into development, humankind was once again beginning to slip. As the population grew, and as the nations political and cultural systems developed, God began showing himself and his wonders to and through the Jews, who were an enslaved population of Egypt, which was the second world empire. The Jews were a people whom God sort of separated from the “system,” showed favor to, taught his ways to, and had conflicts with. In a way, you could say that they were his children. But despite what would occur, God loved them, and extended his love beyond them. Vowing never to do a hard “reset” on the earth again, God would intervene, and conduct extraordinary things that would introduce the world to Him. But still, wickedness was still around and it kept leading to problems. When all else failed, and when the religious system of the Jews were controlled by arrogant, corrupt, and power-hungry elitists, God’s influence seemed restricted to a certain few. Among this, the political system of Rome turned into a dictatorship under Caesar Augustus and ignited political hopelessness amongst the Jews and the people. In fact, the Jews were waiting for the Messiah to deliver them from their political enemies and smash the Kingdom of Rome. Mankind was once again at a point where they seemed hopelessly lost spiritually and politically. And so, God brought about the last resort, the promise of something that he revealed to the prophets of the past through prophecies. The same God who destroyed the world because of its increased wickedness, this time, sent his son Jesus to die as a substitutionary sacrifice. By exchanging Christ’s righteousness with our sins, we could become reacquainted with God, and share in the Kingdom he intended to share with us at the beginning of this earth. But there is a catch. If we want to exchange our sins with Christ’s righteousness, we would have to choose to do it out of our own free will. In turn, we would then be saved from what we rightfully deserve, namely hell. Hell is a place that houses God’s wrath.
Hell and God’s Wrath:
God did not design hell for us. God originally designed Hell for the Devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). Hell was created to house God’s anger towards everything that causes conflict, anger, destruction, slander, and so forth. These things and more are harmful to people and God is a God that calls for a perfect, loving, peaceful, joyful, and giving atmosphere. That is his nature. God hates it when people hate each other because hate is destructive. God hates it when a person works to ruin another person for his own gain because that is destructive. God also hates it when people do things to their own bodies that causes hurt, harm, and eventually destruction to itself. After all, the scriptures are very clear that sin (a violation against God’s perfect order or designed purpose) leads to death (Romans 6:16). There is a reason why we die. We do it to ourselves. By God sending His son to die on the cross for us, we have an opportunity to be “reborn” into a new life, but with a companion to help guide us out of the self destructive path we constantly keep sinking in to by our fallible human nature.
Many people mistakenly think that if you accept Christ as your savior, you become some sort of a “zombie,” that takes his “marching orders” from the Bible. Nothing can be further from the truth, and yet the idea is so erroneous and yet so dominant in the minds of those who do not understand any of the dynamics behind it, that it turns people off from wanting to know more about it. When a person asks Christ into their hearts, they begin a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. As a person grows spiritually, their heart goes in a direction in which they WANT TO change, out of their own free will. People with harsh addictions (which ultimately lead to destruction of the mind, body, and soul) who come to Christ do so because they want to be free from them. As a changed heart progresses, it begins to seek for the body, mind, and soul the very things God wants for the body, mind, and soul. God is angry at sin, yet he loves the sinner. God’s wrath is leveled at sin, and as time goes on, and a person does not want to embrace the only means of salvation that can help save them from their sins, then they reject it, while at the same time embracing and approving the very things that God attests, causing him to become the rightful property of the Devil, as he continues in his self-destruction. And as property of God’s greatest adversary, they simply get the same penalty as the one whose influence they have embraced, but don’t identify it as such.
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ was not only an event in which a man rose from the dead. It was also an event that validated everything that man talked about. Jesus talked about hell. Jesus talked about his coming Kingdom. Jesus said he was going to return to put a stop to man destroying each other and destroying the earth. Before Jesus rose from the dead, he told his disciples that he was going to be put to death, and then rise from the dead. They doubted these events…. Until they happened! The resurrection was the ultimate signal that Jesus was who he said he was, and that when things once again become like it was in the days of Noah, He will return to put a stop to the violence, reverse the influence of worldwide corruption, and put away the driving force behind evil.
As he said himself in Matthew 24:37
37As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
When he returns, he will fulfill an Old Testament prophecy which states in Isaiah 2:4
4 He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
Jesus came to earth to offer a way of salvation from God’s wrath due to their sin, and to build a Kingdom with all of the people whose hearts he has changed. Christ conquered death, and to this day, he still has the power to conquer the elements which causes both physical and mental destruction to you, and thus anger to God. And it wasn't easy. He did all of this because he loves you bad enough to where he would go through all he went through just so that you could reconnect with him, when he could have simply initiated another "reset." If that's not love on the largest scale imaginable, I don't know what is.
In 33 A.D. the most significant event took place that would forever change human history. This event was the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was significant in that it had multiple purposes. For one, it was the end result of a strategy that would reveal itself as the ultimate and most selfless act of love. Jesus died for us, so that we could be presented as righteous to God the father on the Day of Judgment. One day we will become like Jesus (1 John 3:2) and share in the Kingdom he is preparing for all who accept him as their savior.
The Ultimate act of Love:
What is compelling about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is when you look at it with a sense of knowing what was involved, and by measuring the destructive nature of human kind in contrast with the nature of God, the magnitude of God’s love breaks through in a profound and impactful way. Do you think that for one second, God wanted to send his son to die for a creation that was violent, corrupt, and only thought of evil all the time? Consider this….
Genesis 6:5
5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
Genesis 6:11-13
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
God destroyed the earth with a flood because mankind was hopelessly wicked, that if left alone, it could be accurately said that every human on earth would have progressively gotten worse and worse, until they destroyed one other to the point of extinction.
Genesis 6:6 says….
6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
And so, God did something about it…
Genesis 7:22-23
22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
For God to regret having made mankind was something profound. With a rebellious angel that was condemned and thrown down to the earth, and a creation that unsuspectingly fell to the level of that rebellious angel that led to their downfall, human kind was left in a hopeless mess. This is what society came to without God and without his influence. Without God, humankind gets worse and worse because there is no structure, purpose, or direction in their lives. In grace, God gave the people in Noah’s day a chance. Noah warned them, but everybody scoffed, laughed, and treated Noah like he was insane. And so, God wiped them all out, and started over again with Noah’s family. As the population grew, and as the details came into development, humankind was once again beginning to slip. As the population grew, and as the nations political and cultural systems developed, God began showing himself and his wonders to and through the Jews, who were an enslaved population of Egypt, which was the second world empire. The Jews were a people whom God sort of separated from the “system,” showed favor to, taught his ways to, and had conflicts with. In a way, you could say that they were his children. But despite what would occur, God loved them, and extended his love beyond them. Vowing never to do a hard “reset” on the earth again, God would intervene, and conduct extraordinary things that would introduce the world to Him. But still, wickedness was still around and it kept leading to problems. When all else failed, and when the religious system of the Jews were controlled by arrogant, corrupt, and power-hungry elitists, God’s influence seemed restricted to a certain few. Among this, the political system of Rome turned into a dictatorship under Caesar Augustus and ignited political hopelessness amongst the Jews and the people. In fact, the Jews were waiting for the Messiah to deliver them from their political enemies and smash the Kingdom of Rome. Mankind was once again at a point where they seemed hopelessly lost spiritually and politically. And so, God brought about the last resort, the promise of something that he revealed to the prophets of the past through prophecies. The same God who destroyed the world because of its increased wickedness, this time, sent his son Jesus to die as a substitutionary sacrifice. By exchanging Christ’s righteousness with our sins, we could become reacquainted with God, and share in the Kingdom he intended to share with us at the beginning of this earth. But there is a catch. If we want to exchange our sins with Christ’s righteousness, we would have to choose to do it out of our own free will. In turn, we would then be saved from what we rightfully deserve, namely hell. Hell is a place that houses God’s wrath.
Hell and God’s Wrath:
God did not design hell for us. God originally designed Hell for the Devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). Hell was created to house God’s anger towards everything that causes conflict, anger, destruction, slander, and so forth. These things and more are harmful to people and God is a God that calls for a perfect, loving, peaceful, joyful, and giving atmosphere. That is his nature. God hates it when people hate each other because hate is destructive. God hates it when a person works to ruin another person for his own gain because that is destructive. God also hates it when people do things to their own bodies that causes hurt, harm, and eventually destruction to itself. After all, the scriptures are very clear that sin (a violation against God’s perfect order or designed purpose) leads to death (Romans 6:16). There is a reason why we die. We do it to ourselves. By God sending His son to die on the cross for us, we have an opportunity to be “reborn” into a new life, but with a companion to help guide us out of the self destructive path we constantly keep sinking in to by our fallible human nature.
Many people mistakenly think that if you accept Christ as your savior, you become some sort of a “zombie,” that takes his “marching orders” from the Bible. Nothing can be further from the truth, and yet the idea is so erroneous and yet so dominant in the minds of those who do not understand any of the dynamics behind it, that it turns people off from wanting to know more about it. When a person asks Christ into their hearts, they begin a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. As a person grows spiritually, their heart goes in a direction in which they WANT TO change, out of their own free will. People with harsh addictions (which ultimately lead to destruction of the mind, body, and soul) who come to Christ do so because they want to be free from them. As a changed heart progresses, it begins to seek for the body, mind, and soul the very things God wants for the body, mind, and soul. God is angry at sin, yet he loves the sinner. God’s wrath is leveled at sin, and as time goes on, and a person does not want to embrace the only means of salvation that can help save them from their sins, then they reject it, while at the same time embracing and approving the very things that God attests, causing him to become the rightful property of the Devil, as he continues in his self-destruction. And as property of God’s greatest adversary, they simply get the same penalty as the one whose influence they have embraced, but don’t identify it as such.
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ was not only an event in which a man rose from the dead. It was also an event that validated everything that man talked about. Jesus talked about hell. Jesus talked about his coming Kingdom. Jesus said he was going to return to put a stop to man destroying each other and destroying the earth. Before Jesus rose from the dead, he told his disciples that he was going to be put to death, and then rise from the dead. They doubted these events…. Until they happened! The resurrection was the ultimate signal that Jesus was who he said he was, and that when things once again become like it was in the days of Noah, He will return to put a stop to the violence, reverse the influence of worldwide corruption, and put away the driving force behind evil.
As he said himself in Matthew 24:37
37As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
When he returns, he will fulfill an Old Testament prophecy which states in Isaiah 2:4
4 He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
Jesus came to earth to offer a way of salvation from God’s wrath due to their sin, and to build a Kingdom with all of the people whose hearts he has changed. Christ conquered death, and to this day, he still has the power to conquer the elements which causes both physical and mental destruction to you, and thus anger to God. And it wasn't easy. He did all of this because he loves you bad enough to where he would go through all he went through just so that you could reconnect with him, when he could have simply initiated another "reset." If that's not love on the largest scale imaginable, I don't know what is.